The Construct
by Bruno Asner
Summary: Focused on some of the unsung heroes of SSB-Brawl, the story begins when they find themselves trapped in the ridiculous context of the game. Each character wrestles with how they ended up in this mess, but when they bring all the pieces together, what do they all have in common? This psychological drama uses sarcasm and humor to mask a deeper question: "Are my memories even real?"
1. Chapter 1 - The Awakening

_ Chapter 1:

The Awakening

* * *

Softly the dream left her. In a daze, she outstretched her arms skyward—her hands in fists. Before the world came into focus, she closed her eyes and opened her mouth into a wide yawn, arcing her back. As her fingers uncurled and she looked side-to-side, she began to realize something was amiss—namely everything. Bolting upright, Sheik took in the stark, blank landscape. There was nothing anywhere. There was no sky and no horizon; it was just her as far as the eyes could see. She couldnt remember how she got here, not even her dreams, but that didn't stop her from racking her brain. Rising to her feet, Sheik adopted a defensive stance and pulled up her black facemask to its resting place at the bridge of her nose. Perhaps an empty gesture if her cover had been compromised, but she knew nothing for certain. Taking a kunai in each hand, Sheik began pacing in a circle facing outwards as she tried to locate something at a distance to explain this place. As if shaking off the effects of some drug, Sheik noticed she was taking a substantial amount of time to collect herself.

 _How did I get here?_

 _Where am I?_

 _Who did this to me?_

Every unanswered question was joined by still others. As her memories began to flood in, the realizations took their toll. She remembered her mission; she remembered how it had been going. She remembered going to sleep. But nothing gave even a hint of indication as to how she had gotten herself into this situation. The surrealism made her hope she was dreaming now. But somehow she knew she wouldn't be getting off that easily.

Just before waking in this limbo, Sheik had been serving as a double agent—posing as an informant _for_ the Gerudo when really she was informing _on_ them.

 _Has my cover been compromised?_ Sheik's blood ran cold. It almost made sense. Sheik had heard of some black magic that had the power to bind a person in darkness. The body of the 'Cursed One' would just lie there motionless though the heart kept beating. Cursed Ones had not been known to awaken for any reason. _What if this is what that felt like to the person on the receiving end of the enchantment?_

She wondered why she had become trapped now— of all times.

 _Did I slip up? Or perhaps I got too close to something important?_ She remembered she had felt like she was finally making progress. Sheik wondered which of the rumors she had picked up on were important. But it was impossible to know. _Even if I could figure out what Gannondorf was up to, what could I do about it now?_

Every detail recovered impressed upon her this unshakable idea that even with her best knowledge and reasoning, she had not a single thread to pull to unravel this mystery on her end. To make matters worse, she couldn't escape the sensation that she was being watched. Peering around the landscape, she became aware of the obvious—there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. As her mind raced to find a solution, she kept thinking about all the people that were relying on her to lead them and protect them. If she didn't figure this out soon, it may grow apparent to the outside world that Sheik's disappearance tragically coincided with that of another member of Hyrule's Royal Court…

* * *

"Mayday! Mayday! I repeat, this is Falco, I have lost contact with the Tango and request NAV-Support. I'm running blind here…" The young pilot pulled off his useless headset and bounced it off the ground in rage. "Unbelievable!" Falco stamped his feet and clenched his jaw as he began pacing back and forth.

"Who put me on a team with this SCREWUP anyway? The academy said she was too young but Fox just _had_ to throw his weight around… and for WHAT? So she could MUCK up the lock-on and transport me off to gods-know-where. If they ever find me I'm telling Fox once and for all it's either me or her…"

Falco thrashed back to where he had tossed his communicator only to find it was no longer there. Taken aback, he got down on one knee and turned his head side-to-side looking around for it somewhere nearby. Clearly it was nowhere to be seen, a fact blatantly evident after only a couple of seconds' effort. Falco raised his hand up to scratch his head and had to reach under the wire of his…

 _WHAT?!_ Falco pulled the same communicator back off his face and stared at it for a second in disbelief.

"Well, that was trippy…"

Falco began to question this odd space. He had, of course, taken in his surroundings in an instant: the lack of shadow, the isolation, and the absence of objects or visual boundaries. Only now it was beginning to dawn on him the gravity of his circumstance. With no indication as to where he was or how he got here and no way to communicate with his team he realized he had no obvious way to return. He had seen his share of surreal ventures, to be sure. But emotionally he now got the sense of being unwelcome or perhaps that this was no accident. Falco instinctively drew his laser pistol out of his holster and disengaged the safety. He began to run in no particular direction; the faster he ran the more panicked he felt.

* * *

When Lucario awakened to the nothingness his spirit soared. _At long last… my ascension to godhood is complete. Finally have I surpassed the boundary of my pokéball. Just as I predicted, the key to escaping the dreaded confines of that hellish sphere was in passing my aura outside of space and time—as you pass thread through the eye of a needle. Through sheer force of will I have uncovered the loophole of the universe. But who would have thought that being curled up in the fetal position and humming that annoying song would have been the proper mental catalyst?_

Lucario began hovering around this new plane taking stock of his situation. _But what have I to rule here? I am a god of nothing…_ Before he could grow discouraged, Lucario got distracted by a pleasant realization. It occurred to him that he just asked the most important question in all of his existence—seeing as he was the singular entity. Lucario began to feel very self-important for the first time in his short, miserable life. In a strange state of lucid egoism, he set out to accomplish what only he could—to answer the most important question in the universe:

 _Why is there nothing?_

When he arrived at his conclusion, he looked around with a proud grin hoping to suddenly find someone to appreciate his brilliance. _Clearly the reason that there is absolute nothingness… is because I have yet to manifest anything! Thus, now I shall envision a new beginning!_ So, Lucario, drunk with power, began floating around the nothingness attempting to manifest material objects by experimenting with different combinations of vocal utterances with physical gestures, hoping to figure out how this whole 'being a god' thing worked…

* * *

"Are you sure it won't hurt?" the young Trainer questioned only **after** getting into the strange mechanical chamber.

"Would I ask you to do this if I thought it was dangerous? Come on! What kinda guy do you think I am?" Bill replied in his characteristic cock-sure manner as he slammed the door shut. Peering out the small, circular viewing window in the capsule's steel door, Trainer's heart started pounding as fast as his mind was racing.

 _Why did I agree to go along with this? I mean I just met this guy. Really, I don't even know for sure that he's the genius behind 'Bill's Computer' for pokémon storage…_ 'Bill' had become a household name overnight for his innovations as a Pokémon guru. But Trainer had never met him in person until now. He had just stumbled onto Bill's house on an errand and happened to knock on the door while Bill was in the middle of an experiment.

"Alright, hang on for just a second." Bill was racing back and forth from different contraptions. There were two man-sized capsules in the room connected by a large bundle of cables. In one capsule, Trainer was strapped in; in the other capsule was a strange pokémon Trainer hadn't seen before—Lucario. Between pulling levers and setting dials, Bill kept referring to his notes in an old, tattered journal.

"Wait… was that 22,000 volts? That sounds like a lot..." Bill muttered to himself before shrugging his shoulders and wheeling around in such a hurry he knocked his notebook off the table without realizing it. Pikachu looked at trainer through the window from atop Bill's desk with wide-eyed confusion. His head was tilted to one side as he asked:

"Piiiika?" Then the room was filled with the smell of burning paper, Trainer imagined, because Bill immediately ran back to the notebook that had fallen off the desk. Apparently the notebook landed atop a bundle of _very_ hot and poorly insulated wires, because when Bill reached down for it his hand came back up with the reference journal smoking with cinders. Trainer's eyes bulged as he watched Bill—cursing under his breath—beating his notebook on the desk and wincing in pain from the intense heat. But as he waved the smoking pages around the increased airflow caused the journal to light up into an open flame. Bill dropped the journal on the ground and stamped out the flames while Pikachu and Trainer exchanged horrified glances.

"It's fine, it's fine…" Bill reassured himself energetically. He picked up the journal pages—or what was left of them—and fingered through the black mess until it dissolved in his hands.

"I basically remember everything I have left to do…" So he busied himself with more switch flipping, dial turning, and shrugging at error tones. Needless to say there was no hatch release from inside the capsule. Trainer started panicking (obviously) and pounded on the window—silently screaming from within the soundproof chamber. Pikachu, concerned for his master, climbed up on the outside of the chamber and started scratching at the window to try to help Trainer get out.

"Yeah! I can use Lucario's tangible aura as a reference point to pinpoint Trainer's, and that should… do it! There!" And Bill grabbed the computer mouse and clicked "Run."

* * *

Fear was grasping for Ness' heartstrings. The gifted, young schoolboy's mind undulated as the ocean's waves—to and fro. His consciousness would not linger in this vulnerable state. Drifting in and out of dreams and nightmares, only when he was awake did he fully realize the meaning of the scenarios that were being played out.

In the beginning, it was beautiful. Ness remembered that last Thanksgiving dinner he shared. Mom had invited all of his friends for this particular gathering. Was it two years ago? Ness could scarcely see over the table there was so much food! Mom clearly wanted to impress his friends so she pulled out all stops. There was apple pie, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, fried okra, and Mom's specialty—stuffed mushrooms. This particular feast had some new, less traditional, additions as well (His friends didn't come empty-handed!). They added baked potatoes, raspberry tart, and fuzzy pickles to the annual family favorites. And for the centerpiece, of course, Mom had roasted a turkey, stuffed with a combination of lemons and oranges for a tender, citrus bite and seasoned with a garlic and rosemary dry rub.

In this memory, he had taken pause to reflect on the smiling faces of all those gathered around the table. These were the people that would see him through his darkest days. Without their prayers, he could never have vanquished that menace to mankind—Giygas. Their support empowered him to drive out that evil from the land—for now. Mom pulled the window shut and sat back down at the table. The autumn breeze was replaced by the smell of hickory wood cracking in the glowing fireplace.

As this memory was flashing before him in the dream, there seemed to be bursts of static here and there—distorting it. At first, only in sound, and subtle. But it crept into the forefront of his mind and almost became distracting from the beauty of the moment. Ness glanced side-to-side, wondering if this was how it was supposed to go, when Mom sensed his concern.

"Is something the matter, Son?" Ness felt awkward that she saw him acting in a manner inconsistent with this memory. So he made an effort to get the dream back on track; he remembered what came next.

"No, Mom. It's nothing. Can you pass me the cranberry sauce?" Turning her head to one side, Mom corrected:

"It's 'May I please have the cranberry sauce.' You know I'm _capable_ of passing it. You mean to HISSssss if I am _willing_ to..."

HISSSSSSSSSssss

Blinking heavily, Ness broke eye contact as he grasped at his temple. His head ached. Flashes of static broke up the memory again until he realized Mom was waiting on him—holding out the cranberry sauce in front of him and flashing a polite smile. "Why don't you pass it on down the table when you're done? See if anyone else would like some…" As Ness outstretched his hand to take it from her, everyone around the table started moving at very low speed. In fact, as though a recording on playback was malfunctioning, their playful banter transformed to a very low pitch. This led to the illusion of a cacophony of monstrous voices groaning ominously in the background but when Ness looked up he saw such voices emanating from the familiar faces of his friends making jovial, oblivious expressions.

Glancing down into the bowl of cranberry sauce, an idea began to resurface. As if some dark, repressed memory were trying to resurface, Ness zoned out for a minute. Staring blankly at the chunky, red sauce swirling in the bowl he began to pick out a pair of eyes on a disfigured, grotesque face in the shapes of the food.

HISSSSSSSss

Garbled static betrayed the nature of this sinister invader. The viscous fluid swirled further to form a globular texture in the shape of something like an embryo. Deep, heavy bass tones resonated in his chest. Panicked, Ness glanced up at the stairway as he remembered that upstairs, on his nightstand, Ness had left his Franklin Badge out of reach. Paralyzed with fear, Ness realized he was too scared to move. _How could I have forgotten to bring that_? Peering out of the corner of his eyes he saw what appeared to be a grin in the disfigured face. Then, in a flash, the speed returned to normal. SHATTER

"Bwahahahaha!" All at once his loved ones began laughing at his clumsiness as he let the cranberry sauce drop to the floor and shatter into pieces, splattering the contents everywhere.

HISSSSssss

And everything slowed again. Ness felt a dramatic lack of control. He felt helpless. While his loved ones were laughing in slow motion, they were all oblivious of his current agony. But more than that what worried Ness was that this enemy had control over them but they had no idea of its nature.

"But their prayers were swallowed up by the darkness…"

a mysterious voice breathed these haunting words—the hot breath hitting the back of his neck. Ness felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as he began to hyperventilate.

 _He's here; he's back!_ Ness thought to himself. In his last encounter with that embodiment of evil, they only had the strength to suppress Giygas' enormous power. He had returned to the shadows to await a more vulnerable time to strike. _Is it happening now?_ Looking to his friends protectively, Ness said a silent prayer for them. Even then as he prayed, he watched the flame of their auras fade—from a warm, orange glow to a deep-blue stillness. The color faded from their faces and clothing until they were frozen and grey—like cold stone. Even the food on the table began to rot before his eyes—maggots bursting out of the turkey. Cobwebs grew over the window. An icy grip took hold of his shoulders from behind and Ness felt his own aura transforming from crimson to cobalt blue.

Ness was trapped between a dream and a nightmare—wishing desperately to escape. But when he awoke, he was not at home. He saw for the first time the expanses of that blank sub-space and felt as did everyone else—clueless.

* * *

In order to make the most of this dire situation, Sheik reverted back to the first exercise of her ninja training: meditation. Inhaling deeply, she worked to slow her pounding heartbeat. Her chest rose and fell more slowly with each deep, calm breath. In her training Impa instructed her to curb her emotions in this way if ever she was pulled into that downward spiral: Panic.

 _When you surrender to the fear, it fills you. But at the same time, true control of your emotions is impossible since your circumstances cannot be controlled._

The second step in Sheik's training was to release that illusion: Control. So she let go. She relaxed her mind, with some effort, to forget the illusion and focus on nothing whatsoever. Her eyes closed, Sheik took solace in the sensations of breathing. Meditating felt the same here. Her body was the one anchor to reality she now held. As Sheik's meditation became complete, her calm heart rate descended from that pounding thump to a quiet pitter-patter. It was from this place of clarity that she was struck by the physical aspect of her manifold existence. _I am not my body_. She realized.

Sheik broke her meditation when this idea seized her fully. Taking up her long kunai, Sheik kneeled down on one knee and removed her glove. _There is more to me than just this body. Having a body does not make me real. My will is what sets me apart—makes me distinct_. _**That's**_ _what is real here_. Dragging the tip of the black, iron blade across her palm, Sheik parted her familiar flesh to expose the source of her life—her blood. In deep concentration, she finished making the cut. Though she winced from the bite of the steel, she did not blink. She maintained an eager gaze at the stream of blood trickling down her arm to her elbow.

Sheik outstretched her hand, palm downwards, to let the blood flow out and onto the ground more easily. Sheik's brilliant, red eyes dilated to take in the image before her. They stared non-stop as the trickle of blood dripped down, down, down. It dripped to the floor but it didn't stop there. It passed down, down below her—maybe a hundred feet. Down it dripped until the drops of blood vanished from sight at a great distance. Before her very eyes a flesh-tone pixellation stretched over her wound and her skin was repaired instantly.

 _This is not my body…_ Sheik reasoned.

 _The nature of this enchantment is not a physical kind of imprisonment, but a psychological one._

* * *

Out of nowhere, Falco heard static start to come in over his headset.

 _ **Now**_ _this thing is trying to receive a signal?_ Falco puzzled as he slowed his pace and took a knee. Entering a few commands into the headset, a visual display began scanning his surroundings and breaking down the environment into zeroes and ones. Even though there were no objects on the horizon (or a horizon), somehow the scan did yield a numerical display:

 **233579811.0 x 646311217.1**

Turning his head to the left and then to the right, Falco verified that the values did not change with his perspective. So Falco continued testing the values by stepping forwards and then backwards, by running in a circle, and by walking a square. In all of these tests he could see that one value grew larger as he moved 'North' but smaller if he went 'South.' The other value corresponded with his East vs. West position. _So, my COM unit_ _ **was**_ _able to pull up a coordinate plane for my position. Looks like this first number is my longitude and the second is my latitude_. Falco jumped in the air. _Hmmm… no value for height_ … Looking around him as he puzzled, Falco imagined what might be out there just waiting to be discovered. "So which is more important…" Falco wondered aloud "…knowing the limits of this enclosure or the origin?" _Do I try to find the boundary so I can figure out how to escape, or search for the center of the map to see what point or landmark these measurements are based from?_

"… _Just go, Falco!" Star Fox, Captain of the Cornerian Armada's Exploratory Squadron, commanded. "She's my crew-member. I have to try to re-establish contact. You get back to the Lander and hail our cruiser for pick-up before they orbit past our position. I'm well-aware I may miss the rendezvous..." They stood on an uncharted moon at the mouth of a massive fissure in the rocky landscape. Squinting from the headlamps of Fox's suit, Falco couldn't see his smug grin as they argued about his orders. The white of their lamps revealed little of the landscape. This system had no star to orbit, so everything was pitch black. The only other light sources were some bioluminescent mushrooms (or were they grubs?) embedded in the fissure's walls ahead._

" _I didn't sign up for this!" Falco shouted over the noise of their lander's engines._

" _No one would blame you for doing what it takes to survive. Just remember to keep the engine running and wait for us as long as you can!" Fox called back. Star Fox heavily laid his paw on Falco's shoulder and looked into his eyes with genuine concern. Even though his lips were curled into a sly smirk, Falco saw through Fox's impossible confidence. Fox was scared, but he didn't hesitate, nonetheless. Fox hit the top of Falco's helmet as a gesture of good luck. Wheeling around, Fox reached over his shoulder to grab the stock of his assault rifle. He shouldered the weapon and engaged its field light. Falco just stood there watching in disbelief as Fox plunged into the shadows at a fast trot—his gun swaying with each step. Falco stared as the green beacon on Fox's back disappeared deep in the canyon._

 _Before he knew what he was feeling, Falco had clenched his jaw as tightly as his fists._

How can he risk the safety of the whole crew for one fighter pilot who got shot down? The longer we stay here the more chance we miss our take-off window. Well, I for one am going to make it back to the starship in time to get off this rock! And why should I go after him? He gave me an order after all. If he doesn't make it back in time who would blame me for leaving him here. I'm taking a huge risk as it is. After all, the Lander's got the juice for exactly **one** vertical take-off.

 _Falco just stood there gazing blankly in the dark for a moment, confounded by how this was such a simple decision for Fox. He buried his fear amidst layers of anger and contempt until he wasn't even aware he felt it._ _Fox had been decorated as a war hero a dozen times over for his exploits. He was an exemplary leader, a precise pilot, a strategic commander, and a courageous explorer. Whatever system they found themselves in, strangers recognized Fox and bought him drinks. Falco never could rise out of his shadow, even though they had been on dozens of missions together, and he was sick of it._

Shaking off the memory, Falco was incensed at the idea of turning tail to run without having any answers yet. Knowing Fox, he could be sure the captain wouldn't let him disappear on his watch—Falco knew Fox would come looking for him. And if Fox _did_ manage to stage a rescue op, Falco knew he wasn't gonna let them find him sitting on his hands waiting for a rescue.

 _No, no, no… I'm not leaving that easily. If someone brought me here, they're gonna answer to ME! They messed with the wrong Falcon._ So Falco primed his laser pistol and took off running for the origin—where both the longitude and latitude equaled zero—full of fury and looking for a fight.

* * *

When Trainer came to, he was no longer in that capsule. He wasn't at Bill's house. He wasn't anywhere. Looking up and circling around, Trainer called out as if Bill was observing him.

"Bill!? Bill? GASP …BIIIIIIIIILLLL!" With a deep sense of regret, Trainer dropped to his knees and hung his head. "PANT... PANT... He killed me… that pokémaniac friggin' killed me!" Turning side-to-side looking for his trusty companion to no avail, Trainer pulled out Pikachu's empty pokéball. _Just what I was afraid of. I left Pikachu behind._ Trainer shuddered to think that he had left Pikachu behind with the crazy guy that made him vanish in a half-cocked experiment. For all Pikachu knew, he had been disintegrated. But then he really shuddered to think Pikachu may be better off...

After collecting himself, Trainer adjusted the brim of his red baseball hat and took stock of his inventory. "Well, everything's here, it seems…" Pulling out the town maps, Trainer looked to see where he was. "Huh? My Kanto map isn't reading a position?" Tracing his finger along the map, he retraced his steps from Cerulean city north up the Nugget bridge and then over a ways to Bill's house with the weird, square pond (That had a bridge over it for some reason…). _I'm not on here…_ He scanned the far corners of both the Kanto and Johto maps on the off chance that there was some funny-business. But the indicator didn't label him as being anywhere. _Is this thing busted?_? Going for his pack, trainer whipped out his pokédex. "A new pokémon seen? Oh, well looky here. It registered Lucario:

#448. - Lucario (FIGHTING / STEEL)

Height: ?, Weight: ?

Aura Pokémon

[ By reading the auras of all things, it can tell how others are feeling from over half a mile away. ]

 _I don't know what all that was about, but if Lucario's here too I'm not leaving without catching one. If I can get back home in one piece that might actually make for a good story_. Walking in a random direction, Trainer bounced Squirtle's pokéball up and down in his hand pensively. _There's nothin' around here as far as the eye can see… What was Bill thinking?_ Trainer remembered the setup back in the lab: two capsules connected by a large bundle of cables. _Was Bill trying to make Lucario evolve or something? Or maybe he was developing a way for people to pass through the system used for trading Pokémon? Teleportation would be quite the invention. Is that where I am? But why would Lucario be in the other side?_ For all his baseless speculation Trainer wasn't getting anywhere.

Trainer bounced the pokéball in the air again, but this time when he caught it he hit the button to release Squirtle. POOF

"SQUIR-tle!" The Pokémon called out.

"Hey, buddy. I sure could use the company right about now." But Squirtle barely registered what Trainer had said to him. Instead the little guy turned his head to the left and then to the right—searching for something, anything, to be seen. Then he took a double-take to the left—and to the right. In a slight panic, Squirtle frantically wheeled around looking every which way—straining his neck with the rapid movements. Then Squirtle, his eyes bugging out of his head, looked up at Trainer as though expecting an explanation.

Squirtle became confused.

Squirtle used withdraw.

"Squuirrrrrrrrrr-tle?" The pokémon's moan echoed from within the shell.

"It's okay, boy. Come on out of your shell." Squirtle popped just its head out of the shell for a moment to look around. Then, he scurried over to Trainer and clung to the leg of his jeans. "I know, little guy. I know." Trainer sat on the ground and stroked his chin, trying to make sense of what just happened. Squirtle tried to imitate Trainer by scrunching up his nose, furrowing his brow, and placing a paw on his chin to appear to be contemplative. A dozen incompatible theories danced around in Trainer's head: _Is Bill working for the Pok_ _émon Center to transport severely injured pokémon digitally? What if he wasn't Bill at all and that was a member of Team Rocket?_ None of these theories seemed very likely. And they _definitely_ weren't comforting. Brightening up markedly all of a sudden, Squirtle hopped up from Trainer's lap and scurried over to the open pokéball laying on the ground. Taking it in his mouth, Squirtle scampered back over to Trainer and sat it on the ground in front of him.

"SQUIRTLE!" Squirtle exclaimed emphatically, pointing to the ball on the ground at Trainer's feet.

"What's wrong, buddy? You wanna go back in your pokéball?" Looking angry, Squirtle clambered up onto Trainer and stole his hat, only to scamper back down again.

"Hey, what are you doin'?" Trainer protested, jumping to his feet. Squirtle put the red baseball hat on his little head backwards and picked up the pokéball in his paw. Stepping back in a triumphant stance, Squirtle posed dramatically as though he were acting something out.

"SQUIR-tle, Squir-!" Squirtle tossed out the pokéball with one paw while pointing onwards with the other. The empty pokéball knocked into Trainer's leg and bounced on the ground. All at once Trainer realized what his pokémon was trying to say and his eyes widened with astonishment. Trainer scooped up Squirtle under the arms and brought him up to eye-level. Staring into Squirtle's eyes point blank, Trainer exclaimed aloud,

"OH. MY. GOSH! We're in Bill's PC!"

* * *

On his way to the Center, Falco ran into something of note. It wasn't until he was right up on them that he even noticed them facing off. When Falco was within three meters of the two figures standing there, he skidded to a halt. Only with something in the distance coming into view could Falco finally tell there was a thick haze all about. Just three meters in front of Falco there stood a young schoolboy with brown hair, a red hat, and a yellow and blue striped shirt. The boy stood staring into the eyes of a blue demon. This 'demon' had glowing eyes and hands; he had canine features, but stood on two legs like a man. Its orange eyes glowered at the schoolboy as though he perceived him as a threat. The two had been sizing each other up when Falco stumbled into their midst and they barely acknowledged him.

Holding the palms of his hands skyward, Lucario manifested a dark, blue energy in his hands with a bizarre hybrid character of light and smoke. The 'demon' lowered its head and inhaled deeply. Then, in a flash, Falco reacted by opening fire on the 'demon.' His initial reaction was to defend this 'helpless' child. To his surprise, the lasers found their mark but with little result. Lucario didn't even flinch and there were no burnt marks on his fur. All Falco succeeded in doing was in getting his attention, which was sufficient for Ness to strike. Mustering all his might, Ness launched Lucario with PSI energy across the room like a rag doll. The instant he fell a meter backwards he disappeared from Falco's perspective. All he could see was the glow of Lucario's hands through the haze.

Falco turned back to the gifted, little boy. _Is this kid really the victim_? _He doesn't seem so helpless_ _all of a sudden_. Then, as Ness began to rush after Lucario, the fox-demon's aura spread from its hands to cover its entire body in a violent ember. Ness disappeared from view and came flying back through the haze after Lucario knocked him back in a powerful blast. Falco decided to wade into the fray and commit to his newfound ally. He fired a volley into the aura while Ness shuffled back to his feet. The aura grew abnormally big before Falco realized the demon was actually rushing him. With a flurry of strikes Lucario was right up on Falco—punching, kicking, and clawing. Falco reflexively kept his guard up and prevented most of Lucario's strikes from reaching their mark. Then Lucario performed a double-palm strike at Falco's gut. Falco hopped backwards, out of range by half a meter and drew his weapon on the 'demon' again. But before Falco could pull the trigger, he was hit with a blast of Lucario's aura extending from his hands.

When Falco came to, neither Lucario nor his aura were around. The little boy, Ness, was sitting next to him with a look of both concern and confusion.

"Why did you have to get involved with that? Did I ask for your help?" Sitting upright and climbing onto his feet, Falco hunched down to make eye-contact with Ness until their faces were inches apart. Staring down the little brat, Falco burned a whole in the insolent whelp with his eyes. But Ness met Falco's glare and did not back down. Folding his arms, the little boy chided Falco on:

"You don't scare me, Bluebird. If you only knew the things I've seen…" This last remark was too much for Falco.

"Bwahahaha! Look at this little 'stone-cold killa.' You think you're big stuff, huh? Ya little twerp! Well, hey, I didn't know you had powers like that. So **excuse me** for tryin' to help a guy out." Falco turned his back on Ness and began to continue his march to the Origin.

"You see it too, don't you?" Ness asked. At which Falco stopped in his tracks. Falco turned around intrigued.

"See what?" They gave each other a quizzical stare hoping to figure out what the other one was about. Though neither one was willing to reveal any information they knew.

"Maybe you don't. Where are you going, then?" Ness inquired. Falco replied,

"I actually don't know what is there. But that's the point. I'm exploring. I'm an explorer." Ness wasn't buying it for a second. This adult didn't seem to share his ability to sense presences from afar, but nevertheless he was headed for the same object Ness was curious about. Ness naturally wondered,

 _How does he know about the Construct_?

"And what was that thing, anyway?" Falco questioned. Ness wanted to play his cards close to the vest. Especially with strangers. But he could see that they both had the same questions.

"You're just as lost as I am." The young boy divined. Falco turned his shoulders square to Ness and outstretched his hand in greeting.

"Guess so. The name's Falco. I'm not supposed to be here."

* * *

Regaining her composure, Sheik picked herself up, brushed herself off, and began to move forward. It didn't matter that the prison she found herself in was a psychological one, she knew in her heart this is not where her story would end. So she pressed on. The direction didn't matter; the Final Destination was irrelevant. She would succeed. She had to. Her people were counting on her. The Hylians needed their princess back. She would not fail them.

After plodding onwards for an untold distance, Sheik stumbled upon a random cardboard box. In fact, she almost stumbled right into it.

 _Why did I not see it at a distance_? _Has it appeared just now_? Taken aback, she glanced side-to-side to try to locate any explanation for the first object in this landscape. Hyrule had not yet mastered the artful craft of repurposing recycled paper into corrugated fiberboard, so she really had no context for what it was. But she was tentatively glad to see something at all. Somehow running around with no objects on the horizon gives your ave her eyes an indelible sense of being glazed over. Now that they were able to focus on something there was a strange sense of relief. For these reasons she cannot be entirely blamed for what happened next…

Drawing a comparison between this brown box and the crates she was familiar with, Sheik puzzled: _What could be within_? Taking out her kunai, Sheik sunk the blade deep into the box in-between the 'universal' symbols that represented:

"This side up"

and

"Do not use a knife to open."

Before she could complete the cut, the box rocketed skyward taking the knife with it as it twisted out of her hand. Simultaneously, Sheik's lead leg was swept out from under her. Before she knew which end was up she flinched defensively—inadvertently kicking a stranger in the gut in the process.

Sheik leapt to her feet and pulled a kunai and a fistful of senbon in the process. She faced off with the mysterious stranger, ready to counter his next move. The foe was a middle-aged man with a gruff appearance and beard. He wore a ridiculous headband that tailed down almost to his butt and a skin-tight, urban-camouflaged stealth-suit. The suit had belts and straps attached to dozens of pockets, bombs, and other devices she didn't know the use of. He wasn't a particularly large (or handsome) man. In fact on the street she would not have given him a second look (for either reason). But he **had** caught her off-guard, which was no easy task. She could not afford to underestimate this foe on the basis of his unimpressive appearance. Immediately she forgot the fear of the psychological prison. To her, the world became much simpler with an enemy present.

"Well, would ya just look at us, now." The man sighed wearily. "Playing right into their hand like this. It's just what they want." Relaxing visibly, the assassin stood upright and lowered his guard. By contrast, Sheik circled him with weapons drawn in her more aggressive fighting stance. She refused to blink even after he broke eye contact and showed her his back. "After all…" the assassin quipped, "What do prisoners gain by quarreling with each other?"

"You struck first, Box-ninja. Where are we and why does it appear that there is nothing around us?" Sheik knew that she was being impulsive. She couldn't trust what he had to say, but she still needed something to work with—even if it was a lie. If she was imprisoned it would be expected that Gannondorf may have in mind to interrogate her.

"Hehehe… I am NOT a ninja. Actually, it's 'Snake.' And I'll remind you I didn't strike first…" Snake gestured to the damaged cardboard box.

"Then where are we, Box-snake?" Sheik replied, agitated.

Snake palmed his face and looked at the ground "SIGH… It's just Snake. You act like I have all the answers—like I'm some mysterious sage. But I'll tell ya my only knowledge comes from experience—and a lot of it. I don't even know how long I've been lost here. But you? You seem pretty fresh to the scene. Am I right? Well, look, maybe I can explain it like this. The power of a great warrior is in the mind. This is all a deranged sort of 'test.' A test of the mind of a warrior. But everyone perceives it differently. The great expansive space, the solitude and the surreal physics all combine to test your grit. There's no real light or shadow and no right or wrong. We call it the 'Grey Area.' Nothing you do holds any consequence. But this is nothing next to Jigoku…"

"Who do you mean 'We?' And what is Jigoku, then?" Sheik questioned. Giving her the 'thousand-yard stare,' Snake broke eye contact and gazed out into the blank distance as though deep in thought. After a long pause he tried to put words to the terrible experience. In this moment Sheik questioned if he was really as old as he looked. Perhaps he had a hard life and the experience had aged him.

"This is merely a holding cell. Inevitably we will all do battle in the Arena." She cut him off,

"The Arena?" Snake resumed,

"Despite the countless battles I have fought—despite all the wounds I have received—I cannot die. It is there that we do battle for their amusement. It is pain without end; it is conflict without resolution. There is only a break—a pause—before you must do battle again. Imagine it, no way to mark time, no knowing who you will fight next or if they will wipe the floor with you for hours. And it all has no point or purpose. It's the wages of sin… I suspect. I know my sins all too well. I can think of nothing else. So… what are you in for?"

Sheik became aware she had been backing away slowly in disbelief. She tried not to react to what she was hearing. Even knowing this could all just one of Gannondorf's lies, the fear gripped her. Her face flushed to pale white as she and Snake made prolonged eye contact in silence. _Could he truly be a prisoner like me? Am I not alone in this?_ But something about his story just didn't add up.

"You said your name was 'Snake'... You claim to fear you are experiencing eternal judgement and you give me a cover identity? Do you truly expect me to believe this farce?" Frustrated and perplexed, Sheik turned her back and walked away from this mysterious agent. Though shaken, she had all of her tact working for her.

"Wait!" Snake called after her. She paused, waiting for him to show his cards. "It's happening again!"

It was quiet at first, but Sheik became aware that some sort of anthem was playing all around them. As it grew stronger, it sounded to her like a grim, ceremonial march. Sheik circled around, head held high, trying to locate the source of the sound, but it was as if it emanated all around them from a great distance. With a grave look, Snake zoned out gazing at the ground as if watching too much blood pour out of a wound on his leg—like he knew he was finished. Sheik turned to face him and, much to her surprise, he was now wearing a red, digital-camo version of his previous stealth-suit. Even the bandana was red now.

"What's going on?" Sheik shouted over the now blaring music. Snake slowly looked up to meet her gaze.

"It's happening… again." Snake droned on again about as monotonous as a zombie. His outfit flashed rapidly different colors: Grey, Red, Brown, and Blue. Finally, as the music approached a climax, the outfit roulette stopped on a hideous arrangement of combinations of various pelts from great cats—the most dominant of which was a yellow, leopard print.

"Of course…" Snake bemoaned just before the Arena took him and he vanished.


	2. Chapter 2 - Jigoku

_Chapter 2: Jigoku

When the landscape appeared, it was as if a sheet had been removed from her eyes. That stark, blank nothing was replaced with the rich green of a grassy field with scattered trees. Sheik outstretched a hand skyward to shield her eyes from the bright, warm sunlight shining down on her. She became aware of the smell of fresh air and the aroma of grass clippings on the breeze. As she embraced the sensations around her it was almost too much to take in all at once. Her senses were on overload. At first, a smirk found its way to her masked lips as she ran her fingers across the tops of the blades of grass. _Where am I now?_

In disbelief of her environment, Sheik grew increasingly suspicious. Looking around, she became aware that she was not alone. At a distance, Snake was standing opposite her—donning leopard-skin. The two of them were connected by a small dirt road. Savoring the feel of the soft soil under her feet, Sheik readied her weapons and adopted a fighting stance. She took one longing look over her shoulder at the bough of a verdant maple tree blowing in the breeze so that some of its leaves began to dance in a spiral to the ground. _So, this is Jigoku?_ _ **This**_ _is your hell?_

Sheik eyed Snake and attempted to read his body language. _Does he intend to attack me?_ Snake met her gaze with a kind of coldness that she interpreted as confirmation. He had a weathered but determined demeanor—like one who was no stranger to war. In this way he was not unlike herself. He would make for a worthy opponent. Sheik drew in a long breath and began to center herself. _No mind._ She shut out all of the sensations and questions for now. As she sized up her opponent, she cast aside all lines of inquiry and prepared to react—to flow—in whatever way the battlefield necessitated.

"5…" An unseen voice began counting down from on high. "4… 3…" Sheik increased the pace of her breathing. Snake appeared to be glaring at her from a distance. "2…" Sheik lowered herself deeper into her stance. "1…" Her blood ran cold. She exhaled her last, deep breath. "0!"

Released from an unseen force, Sheik dashed forwards the instant she was free to move—only to trip on air and fall on her face in a false start. PLINK A tiny metal ball landed on the ground by her head. _Is this a small bomb?_ Sheik rolled backwards just before the device detonated in a small but concussive blast. The heat of it had just singed her legs as she sprang away. As Sheik recovered, she tried to wrap her head around the bizarre physics of this unprecedented realm. But there was no time to stop and think.

Sheik had only just clambered onto her feet when, from behind, Snake launched a guided missile at her exposed back. Out of the corner of her eye, she had no idea of what nature of strange, low-speed projectile this was. Sheik paused at first, allowing it to approach, and performed a backflip over it at the last second. Though it arced upwards to hit her, she outmaneuvered it just barely. While in midair, Sheik released a fistful of her throwing needles. To her surprise, there was an explosion just behind her. She now stood facing Snake at a mere three meters from him but instinctively glanced back over her shoulder when she felt the blast she was not expecting.

Snake exploited this hesitation yet again and rushed into close combat. With a twinkle in her red eyes, Sheik dropped her hands to the floor and swept Snake's leg out from under him. Leaping into the air, Sheik executed a flying kick into his abdomen—launching him a meter backwards. As she moved in to cover the distance, she led in with a front-leg kick to the head followed by a spinning kick to the same target with no hesitation—both strikes met their marks flawlessly. Strangely, however, when she attempted to move in this close and strike with her hands she felt like she was squeezing down a corridor. For some unknown reason, her hand techniques were limited to strikes with whichever hand was closest to the target. Adapting to this unforeseen constraint of the realm, Sheik was delighted to see that she could strike faster with one hand behind her back than Snake could recover from his clumsy flinching.

The oddities of the realm were, however, were inexhaustible. When Sheik had struck five blows with her lead hand she felt a hesitation in response before she could perform another sequence of five blows. Somehow her opponent had also noticed this weakness just as she did. On the fifth blow of the second combination she had resolved to change her strategy, but she still encountered that hesitation. When she changed to a kicking combination, that window of time was just enough to allow her opponent to cease flinching. Snake seized this opportunity to deploy a mysterious, pink sphere which served to guard him entirely from her subsequent kicks.

It was then that Snake was able to turn the tables on her. Sheik hesitated after performing a second kicking combination just long enough for Snake to deactivate the 'bubble' shield and toss one of his little devices. Sheik had caught the device thrown at her head before she even realized what it was; she instantly tossed it back. BOOM After the blinding blast, she could see that pink bubble shield of Snake's peering out through the smoke. _He avoided all of that damage again. But at least the bubble appears to be wearing out now…_

Evidently, Snake did not intend to give her the opportunity to exploit this weakness. He had already distanced himself from her with the use of his explosives and now readied another barrage of his unique armaments. Unloading another round from the guided missile launcher, Snake had the advantage at long range. Sheik dashed to meet the rocket head-on. When she hesitated in her stride to leap over it, the missile began to arc upwards preemptively to prevent her from leaping over it. Knowing the limitations of its maneuverability, Sheik's gamble paid off. She interrupted her jump just in time, Sheik instead ran under the missile—ducking low enough to miss it. When Snake, peering around the targeting display of his launcher, saw Sheik make her move, he flipped a switch on the underside of the launcher just before Sheik reached the missile's horizontal position. Snake successfully interrupted the missiles path and **it** dropped like a rock—exploding at Sheik's feet.

 _Direct hit._ Snake smirked in delight. He had prevented this ferocious, red-eyed kunoichi from turning this into a close-range combat again. Leaning down lower, Snake used this distraction as an opportunity to hide a land mine in the terrain in front of him. Then, backing up from it, he tossed another grenade Sheik's way. _Oh, heylookyhere…_ As he had paced backwards, a capsule had appeared at his feet. _Wonder what's inside…_ Snake knew such capsules could only be broken open by tossing them at an opponent or at another object. But he had his back to the edge of the stage now, in front of a drop-off, and let's not forget the mine he just planted in front of him. So he held onto it. _This one could be sabotaged, if I crack it open at my feet it could spell the end for me…_

Sheik lay in a heap. Mortally wounded, she held her abdomen and moaned. Her ears were ringing and her head was pounding. _I should be dead._ As she rose to her feet, she pulled her hand away from her abdomen. _No blood! That was more painful than any break or laceration I have yet suffered… and yet here I stand. Was he right about this being a place of judgement? Am I being punished for my sins?_ Shaking off the concussion, Sheik felt she was recovering supernaturally fast when she noticed another metal ball rolling to her feet. _Ugh!_ _Where does he keep all these!?_ Sheik dove out of the way of the blast and again picked herself up off of the ground. After saluting her, Snake pulled a cardboard box out of thin air and hid within it, taunting her.

 _This oughta draw her into my mine… Come to daddy. Uh-oh…_ Snake winced from within the box because when he had peered through the handhold in its side he saw Sheik readying her little throwing needles. Scooting hurriedly, he rotated the box around and instinctively tried to get away. Before he tossed the box off, she had stuck him in the butt with a senbon clear through the box. After his attempt at demoralizing her was interrupted he paused to consider ' _if we had similar training, surely she knows not to be drawn in to such an obvious trap_.' We _assassins must be emotionless manhunters, after all._ As Snake turned back around to see if she had more tiny needles coming his way, he was confused by what he saw. Sheik's body was just sort of hovering there, upside-down in a contorted position. For a moment, it seemed she were being suspended from above by wires. The only part of her touching the ground was one hand—palm flat on the ground. Snake cocked his head to the side in bewilderment. He took notice of her slender musculature flexing almost everywhere. When he finally realized she was showing off her superior acrobatic prowess, she lifted her head up under her arced back to meet his gaze—her defiant red eyes searching his soul.

 _Oh no you don't…_ Snake impulsively chucked the purple and white capsule at Sheik which, as he suspected, exploded on impact. Fortunately for Sheik he had tossed it short. But the fact that Snake picked up a random object from the realm and used it as an explosive confounded her. _Does everything he lays hands on end up exploding_? Angered that his throw fell short, Snake resorted to the guided missile launcher again. He loaded another round and crouched to one knee while raising the barrel to its resting place on his shoulder. Placing his eyes in the sight of the targeting display, Snake noticed Sheik was crouching in her ready stance at that great distance like a coiled viper. Something didn't add up, but Snake released the missile without hesitation nevertheless. With front row seats he watched his demise unfold. Sheik hurled a single senbon with pinpoint precision into the very tip of the projectile, triggering a very premature detonation. Ka-BOOM

Not only had the missile detonated, but it detonated the land mine for a secondary blast to send Snake hurtling over the edge of the stage. Sheik raced over to watch him fall. Her heart was pounding. _What have I become? I have no real quarrel with this agent…_ But as she neared the ledge she heard a sound like a flock of sparrows. Halting in her stride, she saw a strange, white device like a telescope stand with a horizontal wheel mounted at the legs lifting Snake up and over her to safety. Snake released his drone above Sheik to come down on her with a drop-kick. Sheik side-stepped his attack, but to her complete surprise, an unseen force pushed her back onto the dirt path and into the path of his follow-up blows.

Sheik's eyes were closed in expectation of being struck. But to her surprise, when she opened them she found she activated her own bubble shield, involuntarily. _What a defense mechanism…_ Locking eyes with Snake, she lowered her head and glared at her target. _If he is here for the judgement of his sins, that makes me the agent of his punishment._ Sheik resolved to make it quick and clean like she had done to so many moblin grunts before. Sheik led in with a chain of jumping kicks and followed up with a flurry of punches. A couple of blows made it through, but ultimately Snake deployed his shield again. She now had him cornered in his shield with his back to the edge of the stage. Unrelenting, Sheik made eye-contact with Snake through his shrinking pink bubble shield as she pounded away at it with alternating jabs. Finally, she pulled out a unique weapon. It was an ornate, steel chain, masterfully crafted with every link rimmed with 'thorns.' With this weapon in hand, she encircled the bubble shield with it. As she tightened her grip and narrowed the loop, the bubble began to crack like glass underneath every thorn protruding into it. Then, she took one end of the chain and yanked it loose like pulling a ripcord, causing the bubble to spin. As the chain yanked its way loose, shards of the busted shield fell to the ground everywhere. Snake grabbed his head in pain as though staggered by the shattering of the shield.

Defenseless, Snake just stood there reeling in pain. Sheik had compassion for him. After all, he had tried to warn her of the dark nature of this event. So she came up behind him wrapping her arms around his neck in a chokehold. Dragging him to the ground, she went in for the kill—snapping Snake's neck. But it did not go as she expected. It was like he had no bones! Though she compressed with all her force it was obvious he could not die this way. Freaked out more than a little, she tossed his limp form aside. Grimacing with disgust, she grabbed her fist and raised her arms high over her head to deal a crushing blow to Snake's head. But his lifeless form rolled out of the way of her blow. She now stood between him and the edge of the stage. As she spun around in disbelief, she saw Snake crouched behind her with a grim frown. He now held a weapon she recognized. It was a green, metal mace with a diamond-shaped head. However, he appeared to be holding it wrong. He had shouldered the hilt and held the mace very near to its head. He lined up the hilt in her direction before averting his gaze with a sigh. To her great surprise, when Snake pulled the trigger of his RPG her 'mace-head' launched into her face at point-blank and blew her away.

* * *

With the gifted kid in tow, Falco pressed on toward their goal—the structure at the center.

"Hey, kid! So, who was that guy, anyway?" Falco inquired of this newfound ally.

"It's Ness. Just call me Ness. And I dunno what that blue demon thing was. Just that, well, I think it's a reader, like me."

"Come again?" Falco shot Ness a quizzical expression.

"Well, I dunno, he came after me like a heat-seeking missile—ya know, from a long ways off. Like he could see us through the haze. I dunno. This is all new to me!" Ness grew frustrated with the realization that he had no idea what he was talking about in this context because the environment was so impossibly foreign.

"Don't worry about it. I've only been here a few hours myself. It's a mind trip, that's for sure."

Ness took this as an invitation to ask more about Falco himself.

"How'd you get here, then?"

Falco shot Ness a dismissive glance and kept on marching towards the map's origin with haste. His silence indicated a refusal to divulge that nature of information for some reason. Whatever the reason, Ness found it further frustrating. After the pair had hustled for several minutes this way—in awkward silence—Falco took the liberty to ask the questions:

"What do you expect to find at the center?" Ness cocked his head to the side as he replied:

"What do you mean 'center?'" Falco mirrored his expression as if in wonder. _Is this kid for real?_

"You know…" Falco pointed in the direction they were now traveling and his eyes widened just as his tone grew more emphatic. "…You said there was an object up ahead!" In an irritated tone, Ness shot back:

"Yeah, I know what I said. Why do you think it's at the center? The center of what?" But again, Falco redirected the question:

"Hold on, if you don't know your way around, then how do you know there's something over here?"

Ness conceded, "I can pick up on its energy. A **lot** of energy. I told you before: I'm a reader." Falco rolled his eyes and took a sarcastic tone: "Oh, right, you can read auras of people and buildings, yeah, I should've known… of course! I've seen a lotta strange in my time, but I gotta say, you've got some serious strange going on in you." Ness mirrored Falco's sarcasm and responded in kind:

" **I'm** strange? This coming from the talking parrot?"

"Kid…" Falco chided, because he knew Ness hated being called that, "What planet are you from?"

"Um… Earth!" Ness responded impatiently. "So I guess we **are** gonna talk about that?"

"That's what I thought..." Falco responded in his previous tone. "…Parrot's **can** talk on earth! And 'No' we're not gonna talk about my home planet."

"Grown-ups are ridiculous! This is totally one-sided. Why do I tell you anything?" Falco stopped and turned to face his counterpart.

"Look, I'm sorry. There are certain things I can talk about and many things I can't. My line of work involves a lot of exploration of different cultures. But whenever we have dealings with planets without space-age tech I'm supposed to be really guarded about the information I give. You understand."

"But earth has entered the space age! And you call yourself an expert…" Ness retorted.

Falco chuckled at the idea before responding: "I wouldn't call that the space age. You still have stone-age cultures running around on that rock. When you get more globally-minded, then come and talk to me about having a space age culture." Ness's curiosity was sparked. Traveling through white nothingness on foot had been proving surprisingly boring. So he figured why not probe further:

"So, you can't tell me what you were doing before you got here…" After a long pause Ness took Falco's silence as agreement. "Then tell me, what did you eat for breakfast?" After a brief hesitation, Falco brightened up considerably.

"Hehe, Alright, Ness, I'll bite. It was enriched meal pellets and a synthetic smoothie on the side." Falco motioned like he was throwing back the last gulp of a drink before rubbing his belly and letting out a pretend sigh of satisfaction.

"Ew, gross!" Ness gagged "There's no way you ate that for breakfast!" Falco relished the kid's boyish expressions and range of responses. For all of his powers and social quirks, Ness was just a child at heart. Perhaps he just wanted to be able to be a boy again. But he was definitely scarred somewhere along the way.

"Absolutely, bud. You will all eat them one day… maybe not in your lifetime. It's not fun, but that's what being a trans-galactic Arwing pilot demands. You can't store much in the mini-fridge and if you're on the job for months at a time for one mission that's how it's done."

"Nuh-uh. I couldn't do it." Ness frowned and shook his head. "Every day for months?"

"Yeah, dude. It's not as bad as you think, though. The synthetic smoothies can be calibrated to any flavor of beverage you can imagine. The enriched food pellets are less flexible with flavors, but you can actually modify the texture quite a bit, which makes up for it. Imitation meats or breads usually turn out pretty accurate. But it's always like a meatloaf version of what you ordered. What I ate this morning was a pleasantly passable fish with imitation white wine." Ness looked away and shook his head in a way that he made Falco smirk.

"If you get me back home, my mom will cook you up some **real** food." Ness offered out of sheer pity.

Falco raised one eyebrow high in skepticism. "I tremble at the thought… you probably eat, what, processed potato wafers with frosted tomato paste?" Ness furrowed his brow at Falco's description.

"Alright, Space Cowboy, don't slam French fries and ketchup until you try them. I don't care what the books say about them. Just, no. My mom will grill us some hamburgers and you'll forget all about your enriched gerbil food." Over the course of their arguments about food and cultures they forgot themselves for the moment. But it didn't take long before Ness remembered about the banquet in his dreams. It didn't take long before the memory and reality of his anti-hero, Giygas, came crashing down on his consciousness like a tidal wave. Immediately, Falco could detect the stillness of Ness's breathing. When he spoke, the sadness in the young boy's voice was tangible:

"Weird, here you've got me going on about my favorite foods. Just before I wound up here I had some nightmare that began at a banquet…"

Falco halted mid-stride and turned to face Ness. He lowered himself to one knee and placed one hand on his shoulder in consolation.

"Hey, Ness, it's okay if you're scared. Someone so young shouldn't have to go through something like this. But you're gonna be okay. You're not alone." Before Falco had finished Ness lost interest.

"I'm fine, I told you. I'm not a child. Seriously I've seen **far** worse—if you only knew…" But Falco wasn't planning on taking this kind of treatment again.

"Cut it out with the 'tough guy' act. I'm only trying to help. Anyways, why do I get the sense you don't get along with guys like me?" Ness raised an eyebrow at the question before sighing and shaking his head.

"Awwwuuuhhh, you caught me! I confess, I'm secretly racist against giant, blue, bipedal parrots!" The brazenness and sarcasm of Ness' response reminded Falco of himself as a teenager.

"Hahahaha… ya know what? I think I'm starting to like you, kid."

"Well, that's good for you…" Ness muttered begrudgingly. _Grown-ups are all the same…_

They carried on in silence for a while, still marching onward to the center of the map. Falco imagined what they could expect to find. Ness stewed over how he could keep Giygas in check over the long-term should he return home in time. Falco kept looking over his shoulder, checking for signs of the blue fox-demon. It was a useless gesture in this haze. Ness could perceive auras at a much greater distance than Falco could see. Nevertheless, Falco's training and instinct prompted him to at least appear alert to potential enemies lurking in the 'shadows.'

Finally, they reached the center. Falco halted in his tracks. For a moment, Ness didn't know what was going on, but when he caught up to Falco he, too, came out of the haze abruptly. The sight was utterly astounding. Even to Falco, whose job it was to explore relics of wonder from unknown cultures, this was quite the grand reveal. Before them, beyond a small expanse of more flat, white landscape lay the only object in the realm. There was, on their plane, a great electric-blue ring pulsating with energy. From the ring sprang out a great building hundreds of feet tall—a vast, white spire adorned with mechanical instruments of unknown purpose. It could take an hour to walk in a circle around the building, it seemed. Craning their necks to peer up at the peak, the pair transitioned from behaving like cautious military scouts to dazed tourists in a manner of seconds. They gazed at the Ivory tower in awe for a moment before glancing back at each other.

With his target finally in sight, Falco quickened his pace towards the monument—leaving Ness struggling to catch up. Falco drew his weapon in one hand and activated his target locator with the other to scan the structure.

"This thing is all-metal. It must be a pretty advanced alloy, too. To construct something so large yet still has the capability to block my scanner from seeing inside. If it is, indeed, hollow." With single-minded determination, Falco continued his approach. He sought to gain intel here as rapidly as possible. They needed answers.

"Hey, Falco, he's coming this way." Ness was more level-headed in a crisis than at any other time. He actually felt calmer now than during their conversation earlier.

"Who?" Falco didn't even turn to look, he was wrapped up in unraveling this mysterious structure.

"The fox-demon! Who else? He's coming this way. He must be right at the edge of the haze, I saw him for just a second but he went back in." Falco took a brief glance over his shoulder, but now that he had reached the base of the structure he saw no immediately pressing concern.

"Keep an eye on him for me, will ya? But stay close." Falco reached out to touch the building. At the base where the building met the ground the electric blue ring hummed and buzzed with energy.

"Geez! Watch your step around here…" The irregular surface of the building had dozens of square panels scattered across its surface. It was not a pretty building when you got up close. It seemed to be designed more for the function than the form. _But what function does it serve?_ Falco wondered. There were no apparent windows or doors in the structure. So it wasn't even clear whether the thing held rooms with people in it or if it held a great mechanism.

"What is it?" Ness asked.

"We're not gonna know without opening it up." Taking his pistol in hand, Falco separated the gun barrel from the receiver port to expose the business-end of the lethal mechanism within. Cranking the dial on the battery cartridge to 'maximum output,' Falco held the handle with both hands and pressed the receiver directly onto one of the panel's seams. "Stand back." Falco squeezed the trigger and held it down at length. Sparks shot out every which way creating blinding light and a good deal of noise. He slowly dragged the pistol downwards, tracing the line, just as the area he was focused on grew red-hot he moved on. Meanwhile Ness started getting more fidgety. He kept glancing off in the distance and then shouted something Falco couldn't make out. "Just a second!" Falco shouted back. He was intent on getting this panel opened before something should spring up to prevent them from accomplishing their objective. But just as Falco was rounding the first corner, Ness' patience wore out and his sense of urgency won out. Ness shoved Falco out of the way of the panel. "Hey!" Falco protested. He knew Ness heard him this time since the sparks were no longer flying. But before he could otherwise act, Ness did:

"PK FIRE!" Ness shouted as he channeled his potent PSI energy into an incendiary blast centered on the middle of the panel. *FOOM* Since the panel was weakened along one seam, the blast transferred all the energy unequally through the alloy plate. It crumpled up wildly, no longer attached to the seams but for the two corners. The whole thing was still sizzling when Falco pried it off by the force of his gloved hands. But not without shooting Ness an angry look.

"Great, but give me a little warning next time?"

"I did" Ness retorted. "I didn't feel like waiting for you to painstakingly melt down the entire seam to a puddle of molten metal at our feet…" Turning back to the panel, it had exposed a small inner chamber that was just a meter deep. The chamber appeared to be dedicated to a singular mechanism. All Ness could see was wires and clockwork.

"This is bizarre!" Falco exclaimed.

"What is it?" Ness wondered aloud.

"That's just it. I don't know. That's bizarre in itself because my specialty on the team is cryptotechnology—uncovering the uses of unknown tech. This mechanism is stupid simple and well, just plain stupid. Look here." Falco pointed to a bundle of wires hooked up to a small computer. "These cogs are actually driven by the current in these wires. Normally cogs are used to transfer energy, like from a power source to a useful mechanism. For example, a windmill would transfer wind energy by use of cogs to drive a millstone to mill wheat into flour…" Ness cut him off impatiently.

"I know how a windmill works, how are these cogs different from that?"

Falco replied "Well, Ness, because this is actually unnecessarily large clockwork. It's not transferring power, it's transferring information—just one piece. A time-delay that won't connect the computer to its network until the exact moment it's meant to perform its action. That makes all this the most over-sized non-digital timer I've ever seen. And the farthest thing from elegant."

"Who would build something like that?" Ness argued.

"Paranoid recluses or just plain idiots maybe, I dunno. It is secure from hacking this way, if that's what they're worried about. Because a normal computer network grows more vulnerable the more computers are in the network. But this way, to hack the computer behind the clockwork you would have to wait for the timer to finish counting down. But then it would be too late to stop from performing that single function. But there is another explanation…"

"What?" Ness replied.

"It's decorative… Falco postulated. "Perhaps it's here to serve as a façade for those that don't know what they're looking at. Which would mean this device's purpose is to appear to be important when it's not…"

"The tower is covered with panels like this." Ness observed.

"There's one way to test a theory. Manipulate just one variable." Falco proposed. Ness shot him a confused glance but he wasn't looking. He was halfway inside the pocket pulling out cogs and rods from their mounts and reversing their order.

"If I reverse the gear-ratio, I can speed up the timer exponentially. But what I still don't get…" Falco wondered aloud, "Why is the housing made of more valuable materials than the mechanism itself? We're talking skyscraper-ready alloy with scanner-obscuring properties on the outside. But on the inside, it's cheap copper wires and iron cogs powering a basic pre-fall earth computer… Like the archaeological equivalent of Russian nesting dolls that get bigger for every layer you take off. It's backwards!"

"Pre-fall Earth?" Ness repeated emphatically. Falco shot him a puzzled glance. Then, when he realized Ness' face had paled, he had that horrifying realization—he had just broken his own rule.

"Whoa, hey man! Slow down…" Falco rushed his pronunciation of each word though pausing strangely in between each one like he was thinking hard about what he said next. "I mean, ya know, I studied this influential time in Earth's history…" Falco began shifting his posture and using excessive hand gestures while explaining. "…in this one period through that spring and summer just before—ya know—fall. So…"

"Save it." Ness replied, downcast. "I knew it was coming. The worst of it…" Ness looked up at Falco, misty-eyed. His voice cracked as he spoke, "…is it's my fault. I couldn't stop Giygas. I see it every time I sleep. It took more than everything I had just to drive him back. I dragged my closest friends into it. But he was more than just an enemy. He's the embodiment of a concept. How do you fight a concept? He went into hiding. But I'm here, so there's no one left who knows the danger facing them..."

At that time, both were startled by the sound of a somewhat friendly voice coming from immediately behind them: "Greetings. My name is R.O.B. I will advise you to step away from the Construct."

Everything he said had the intonation to suggest he said it with a smile. "Interference with the experiment will not be tolerated." Falco and Ness backed away slowly from the panel, turning to face each other. They shot each other quizzical glances as if to invite the other to come up with a response. As they turned to face this newcomer, they saw that he was a boxy, man-sized robot of metallic construction. R.O.B. had a box-shaped head with two circular cameras mounted at the front face and set apart like two big eyes. His narrow, telescoping neck connected the head to a squat, cubic body of dense construction. It seemed heavy, but not awkward—with a low center of gravity. To add to its sturdiness, R.O.B. moved about by means of a pair of caterpillar tread. Despite the military-grade construction of the exoskeleton, R.O.B. did not come across in a threatening manner. Perhaps it was the combination of big eyes, polite tone and awkward-looking arms which it held at right angles to the body. But Falco wondered if perhaps this was an elegant aspect of the design intended to conceal its potential—and weaponry. "Thank you for your compliance." R.O.B. droned on politely after they backed away from the panel. Though the pair were within arm's reach of the robot, it rolled up in between them and over the warped, metallic panel at their feet. As the robot rolled over it, the metal caved and groaned in such a way to highlight the surprising weight the R.O.B. unit possessed. Almost as if a show of force, R.O.B. recklessly backed up over the metal plate for good measure—again coming very near to running over Ness or Falco's feet. Then it bent over and grabbed the plate off of the ground and carried it to the exposed panel. An unseen laser weapon from behind the tinted glass making up R.O.B.'s face fired a concentrated laser at range to fuse the alloy back into place. Though the panel was clearly worse for the wear, it was a decent patch job considering it took a mere fifteen seconds to complete.

As R.O.B. turned around and began to roll off disinterestedly, Falco wasted no time in probing the robot:

"R.O.B., what is your protocol?" Without ceasing in its course along the length of the Construct's wall, R.O.B. replied:

"My protocol dictates the prevention of subjects from interfering with the pre-determined conditions of the Construct." Falco glanced at Ness to ensure he was paying close attention before asking:

"What is the Construct's function?"

"Request denied. This request violates the terms of the experiment." R.O.B. replied, well, robotically. But this was not like his usual tone.

At this point, R.O.B. had made its way to an irregularity in the Construct that jutted out like it had an attached ATM covered in white, alloy panels. As R.O.B. approached this shape, a panel slid out of position to expose the display of a computer monitor and a keyboard. As the robot began to type in an entry the pair realized that its A.I. didn't seem to grasp the fact that they were reading over its shoulders. Their curiosity outweighed any concerns they may have had at the moment.

[ ADMIN: repaircomplete. REQ: dockprotocol? ] After a moment there seemed to be a response generated as though R.O.B. was in a chatroom.

[CONS: REQ: dockprotocol – granted ] After which point a mechanism within the Construct could be heard moving about.

"What's going on?" Ness voiced his concerns aloud.

"I don't know!" Falco replied before closing the distance from the robot. R.O.B. was presently rolling over to a small, square access panel a few meters away and acting like Ness and Falco weren't there. The panel retracted to expose a small, cubic recess exactly as wide as R.O.B. but considerably shorter than his current height.

"Hey!" Falco called out to him in vain. "Hold on!" R.O.B. proceeded towards the opening until he was lined up with it. Then he rotated on that point until his back faced the Construct and he retracted his head and arms into a compact cube the same exact size and shape as the recess. As R.O.B. began to roll backwards towards the recess without hesitation, Falco jumped in the way of the dock in an attempt to block R.O.B. from entry.

"What is the experiment?" Falco shouted, impulsively trying any means to slow the robot down. He squatted down low and grabbed the edges of the robot with his hands as it rolled into him in a last-ditch effort to gain some answers. R.O.B. completely ignored everything Falco did or said. In fact Falco immediately realized he couldn't physically hinder the sheer mass of R.O.B. in this way unless maybe his skull could jam up the works in there. But he didn't want to stick around to find out. As Falco slid backwards under the pressure of R.O.B. pushing with tank-style tread, his lower back hit the edge of the receptacle.

"Watch out!" Ness shouted. Using the edge of the Construct wall, Falco bounced out of the hole—barely scraping by as R.O.B. moved in. But in one, smooth motion Falco managed to activate the shield reflector on his belt buckle. This device released a focused, energetic pulse straight into the side of R.O.B. which tossed the robot violently backwards and out of alignment with the dock. Pulling his pistol, Falco intended to follow through on his show of force.

"Open that terminal again, please, you piece of scrap." Falco imitated R.O.B.'s previous tone of voice to mock the politeness used earlier. Falco had a smirk on his face knowing the bot couldn't ignore his request this time. As R.O.B. unfolded from its storage configuration and slowly rolled towards the terminal in compliance, Ness was struck by Falco's reckless demeanor. Ness couldn't help but imitate Falco's smirk as he wondered what it must be like to be an Arwing pilot. _To think that he jumps in to dangerous situations with all kinds of unknowns without thinking twice. Could I ever be that brave?_ Falco touched the barrel of his pistol to the back of the robot's head to 'encourage' haste.

"Aggression detected." R.O.B. announced in his curiously polite tone.

"I'll show you aggression! Move!" Falco prodded the back of R.O.B.'s head again with the barrel of the pistol. While Falco escorted R.O.B. to the terminal, this time it was evident that the terminal reacted to the proximity of R.O.B. by opening up automatically when he was two meters away.

"Alright. Now input the following: [REQ: experimentprotocol?] Falco dictated the following as they arrived at the keyboard. R.O.B. began typing immediately and very rapidly. But by the time Falco realized he was not typing what Falco said it was too late. CRASH

Falco had hit R.O.B. again with his shield reflector to stop him in his tracks. While Falco was holding him at bay, Ness went up to the monitor and read out the prompt aloud:

[ ADMIN: YELLOW ALERT ]

[CONS: YELLOW ALERT – TERMINAL 9221. Threat lvl: minimal. Initiate: Doppelgangerprotocol. ]

* * *

It wasn't the pain of burning or the sensation of broken bones that ended her experience of death. She remembered falling off of the stage edge, still smoldering and reeling from the pain, and everything else faded away. She fell and fell for a great length of time down into the darkness. Finally she struck bottom on an unseen plane. Sheik's head was still pounding from the concussion of the blast when she scraped herself off of the ground. Taking in the landscape, it appeared to be a black version of the blank slate she began in. Though there was no apparent light source, she could see the hand in front of her face as though she were in broad daylight. Scanning at a distance, Sheik reasoned that if there was anything to be seen it would also emit its own light. This chamber borrowed from the previous one the same sense of impossibility, though here it added a sense of mystery and fear. At the back of your mind it seemed as though something could be watching you from the shadows. Turning around she realized that Snake was with her too. His eyes were full of sorrow. His flamboyant, leopard-print outfit replaced with a more sensible blue-grey urban camo stealth suit as before. When she noticed him he broke eye contact and stared off into the distance.

"There's really nothing more to say. It's as I said before…" Snake spoke with a grim, remorseful tone. But before he finished his thought Sheik walked past him, turning her back towards him disinterested as she rolled her shoulders back.

"Not really." Sheik's words interrupted his monologue. "If anything, this holding cell is the real torture. The nothingness—the loss of time and purpose—makes you feel lost to the world and yet watched at the same time. At least that bloodsport gives us something to do…" As she spoke Snake noticed the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. _Is this fear I'm feeling?_ He realized he didn't want to face her again whether in life or in hell. It meant facing death repeatedly.

"At least in the arena we can act out. We can show our strength. We can send a message to those watching—a warning and a threat: 'If you take me, you had better keep me. For if I take you, I will show no mercy.'" In that moment Snake did not feel like the victor. He admired her defiant spirit and wondered how long had it been since he gave up resistance. Sheik continued walking away though she had nowhere in particular she wanted to be. The whole ordeal was rather exhausting. She was still sore about losing to one with no finesse at all by the bizarre rules of this realm.

"Where are you going exactly?" The idea of Sheik not wanting to be around him amused him and a smirk found its way to his mouth. Sheik realized there was nothing to be gained by ignoring him.

"What other warriors can I expect to fight?" Sheik paused mid-stride as she inquired of Snake.

"No one like you." Snake replied. It was weird. Sheik hoped that was not his attempt at flattery.

"What do you mean by this?" Sheik asked, turning around to face him. Snake replied:

"You have a unique fighting style. Not many combine speed and agility so flawlessly." Snake hesitated between words in a characteristic way.

 _Yeah, he's into you…_ Sheik thought to herself. _I can make this work to my advantage, though._ "Have you encountered a man named Gannondorf?" Sheik pressed. If he was an agent of Gannondorf's she needed to act like she believed whatever lie came next. Snake responded without hesitation:

"No. But I have heard of him. He's here, too." Snake had no hesitancy at all about answering. "How do you know him?" Due to her training in reverse-interrogation, Sheik began to suspect that Gannondorf could be probing to test her loyalty. She thought perhaps she was still alive because she hadn't been found out yet. The nature of Snake's question could be used to feel out if she feared him. Sheik replied:

"He is a mighty King from my realm. I must return to his side. I'm afraid I will be missed." Snake raised an eyebrow at her response.

"Your 'King' is a megalomaniac. He's trapped here just like us. He's another 'warrior.' I know a guy who fought against him. He's known for yelling a lot for no reason." Sheik could hardly keep from reacting to this off-color remark. She was sure she smirked at one point, but the mask covered her mouth enough to hide it. She did not expect such a brazen and unflattering response from one of Gannondorf's henchman. Her theory didn't seem to be holding water, but she reasoned it could all be a part of Snake's cover. So she took a tailored approach.

"Mind your tongue. I am one of his subjects and will not tolerate such criticism of my lord." The words tasted bitter on her lips but Snake wouldn't know that. She knew she always excelled at lying. Strangely she found feigning delight at dinner parties was a greater challenge than her Sheikah interrogation training proved. The conversation had dead-ended and she didn't want to arouse undue suspicion so she changed subjects: "What room is this? Will we continue to move about?" Snake chuckled to himself at though this idea were somehow funny.

"No. It's not like that. We are in the exact same place. The holding cell. The subspace. It fluctuates from whiteout to blackout. There's a rhythm to it: white we fight; black is night. At the end of whiteout is combat like you just experienced versus a random opponent or group. Then after the fight is blackout. At the end of battle there's an event called log-off. It's very disorienting. Log-off is just a weird transition from blackout to whiteout. The system resets somehow. It always seems like a great deal of time has passed. But no one really knows if that' true. You never really sleep, so you never dream. But after log-off you are in a different chamber than before. I can about guarantee you won't see me again for many cycles. We'll be separated into different chambers."

"Why do you say log-off is disorienting?" Sheik wondered aloud. Snake responded:

"Well, it seems like your position is reset, an unknown amount of time has passed, and you're in a different chamber. Sometimes you aren't even expecting it. It prevents you from getting used to..." Sheik interrupted him:

"Wait, how could you know your position has changed with no point of reference?" Without missing a beat Snake replied:

"Because there is a point of reference. A huge tower in some chambers. They call it the Construct."

"They?" Sheik exclaimed. _Who are 'they?'_ She meant to ask Snake that. But just as she thought it, her head began to ache. Grasping at her temple, Sheik closed her eyes. She heard the sound of static all around her, which prompted her to open her eyes. Only moments had passed, she was certain.

"Snake?" Sheik called out. She looked left and right. He was gone. The subspace surrounding her was white now. Had it been white before? She felt strangely disoriented.

"Snake?" She shouted.

"SNAAAAAAAAAAAKE!"

* * *

Recovering from his recent fight, Lucario was overcome with rage at the insolence of his subjects. _What defiance within my own realm! To think that I could manifest such disloyal ingrates as those. These beings do not know my might. I will hunt them down and command their allegiance. They will learn to fear me._ Lucario quickened his pace. He had been following Falco and Ness from afar since they had parted ways. While nursing his wounds, he had being handling them with caution—stalking from afar. In the process he felt that he could tell when the young reader could perceive his aura. Now he could accurately estimate that distance. Since his active range of detecting auras seemed to be wider than Ness' he felt he could safely observe him and Falco from afar without their awareness. Now that they were closing in on an object of interest, Lucario felt it was nearing time to make his move.

Hovering gently out of the haze for a brief moment, he took stock of the situation. Indeed they were preoccupied with the object itself. Lucario even glanced up in curiosity when he saw the great, white tower. But he was far more interested in his 'subjects.' Upon closer examination, Lucario was surprised to see a third figure there with them. _Why can I not detect his aura? Has he the power to disguise himself before readers?_ Lucario could not determine whether this wild card was more powerful than the others or merely did not warrant a strong aura because of its weakness. Then there seemed to be a commotion. From that distance he could only determine that the rogue subjects were pushing around the shiny box man. Slinking out of the haze fully, Lucario hovered silently and slowly as he made his gradual approach. They were certainly too focused on each other to notice him.

When Lucario had halved the distance between them, the battle took some kind of a turn. After getting knocked around a lot, the shiny box ignored the other and seemed to commune with the tower. When Falco attacked the box man with light from his body and threw him hard into the side of the building, the entire tower seemed to groan. At first, the electric, blue ring at its base expanded a little, but for every meter it expanded, the building grew another three. It seemed that this entire tower was just the tip of the iceberg, for it continued to grow and grow as the ring expanded—rising upwards. The little terminal Falco threw R.O.B. away from was now five meters in the air. The new layers of the tower coming out of the portal were repeating archways. There were hundreds of them. Each one broad enough for a Snorlax to take a nap under. But they led deeper into the tower where darkness obscured. He thought he saw his opportunity to make his move, Lucario watched carefully as Falco and Ness stopped in their tracks and just gaped at the growing building. Then, when the tower stopped growing, two of the arches seemed to 'activate' their own portals. Like a great energetic door, the pulsating energy poured out one man each. As the men approached with blinding light emitting from behind them in the portals, they began to take on a little shape. In their silhouettes they appeared to match their evident opponents. One figure was squat with a large head while the other was taller and leaner but had a beak protruding from his face.

Lucario's eyes widened in awe, but then his brows furrowed in jealous rage. _This is the power I seek. That metal man makes me seem a cheap imitation. He must be aware of my presence, for me mocks me here. He has constructed two servants of identical build to oppose my servants—he flaunts their prowess and loyalty over my subjects. I will not be the imposter here—the false demi-god._ As the newcomers stepped out of the light, it became evident that their surface appeared as blank a slate as the subspace was as though they were composed of wire frame with nothing over it. They matched off with their likenesses and it became more blatant that they were exact copies of Falco and Ness.

* * *

"Fall back!" Falco shouted while blindly firing a barrage of cover-fire with his laser pistol. The wire-frame body doubles seemed to possess even the same physical attributes as their opponents. Ness rushed to Falco's side in compliance with his order. The wire-frame Ness attempted in that moment to intercept him with his P.K. fire attack. Falco, having seen this used before, dove in front of Ness to project him from the tiny projectile. At the last second, Falco activated his shield reflector to turn the white-hot projectile back on its user. The P.K. attack expanded into a brilliant, searing flame when it struck the Ness clone in the chest. Falco maintained the aggression by opening fire with his pistol to further exacerbate the Ness clone while he was flinching. However the Falco clone matched Falco's speed perfectly. It mirrored what it had seen flawlessly—diving in front of the pistol barrage to intercept the shots with his shield reflector. Falco instinctively ducked and covered to minimize the exposed surface to the reflected barrage. Missing Falco entirely, the barrage did manage to strike Ness with multiple shots.

"Aghhh!" Ness whined. Falco turned his head to realize Ness couldn't see the projectile's coming because Falco stood in the way. "Slow it down." Ness cautioned. "They're mimicking our abilities. If we pull out new techniques and tactics we're basically teaching them how to fight better!"

"I'm sorry 'bout that, buddy." Falco winced when he saw the minor burns on Ness' skin.

"Snap out of it." Ness shouted angrily. "Or it's about to get a lot worse for both of us!" The pair faced off against their opponents together. The Falco clone charged in ahead of Ness and both moved in close. Falco and Ness engaged them tit-for-tat. Falco sparred very rapidly—flowing from one striking combination to another seamlessly. His clone responded with just as much agility by dodging and weaving through the combinations equally seamlessly. Meanwhile the Ness clone attacked in a more clumsy but hard-hitting manner. Making use of an array of P.K. fire and baseball bats among other weapons from Ness' backpack, their exchange of blows was much more of a 'dirty' fight.

In all of the commotion, Falco noticed they were continually distancing themselves from the Construct. The mysterious tower still held so much intrigue. It seemed that for all their intel gathering they were left with more questions than answers. But these two threats posed a much more immediate problem. Under the circumstances, if they were truly fighting their equals without the ability to make use of their full repertoire, it could be safely assumed it couldn't end well for them. At the same time, Falco found himself hesitating to make the judgement call—they needed to flee. He knew there was no other way. Perhaps it was pride that stalled his decision, perhaps it was curiosity. Or fear? He knew that retreat could mean fighting these things in the haze if they pursued. As one who didn't like the options he was presented with, Falco scanned the environment in hopes of another option. It was then that he remembered there was another enemy out there…

"Ness! Is there anything out there?" Falco called out over the sounds of the combat.

"No." Ness was struggling to keep up with his opponent, "Wait, look back at the dock!" Falco turned his head to see the fox-demon, Lucario. For some reason they hadn't noticed Lucario slip past during the fight. Now he was at the base of the tower. It appeared that the new bottom layer of the tower had a dock for R.O.B. because it appeared that Lucario was trying to blast R.O.B. out of the dock by force…

WHAM

Falco went down hard. In his distraction, he had ignored his opponent—who was his equal. He blacked out after a roundhouse kick to the side of the head. When Falco awoke, he found himself lying on his back with a pillar of fire at his feet.

"Move, soldier! Get yourself up!" Ness shouted at the top of his lungs as he did his best to fight off both opponents. As Falco clambered onto his feet, he could see the clone Falco burning up in the pillar of P.K. fire. At the same time, clone Ness came up to flank Ness. Without turning away from clone Falco, Ness fired a concentrated P.K. thunder blast out of his other hand. "I need you, now!" After collecting himself, Falco readied his weapon just as clone Falco ceased staggering and was ready to re-engage.

As Falco and Ness returned to trading vicious blows with their 'doppelgangers,' just to hold their ground, Lucario succeeded in blasting R.O.B. free of the metal-alloy-plated enclosure protecting him in the dock. While R.O.B. struggled to unfold his arms and prepare his weapon systems, Lucario was wiping the floor with him. Amidst their own fights, Falco and Ness could hear the sound of laser fire and blasts being traded in the combat between Lucario and R.O.B. Whenever they got a glance at the situation, it appeared evident that even though R.O.B. was putting up a fight, he could not match Lucario's ferocious rage. Falco shot Ness a quizzical glance as if they should figure out what to do. But before they could react, Lucario got his hands on R.O.B—who had been trying to cover his own retreat most of the fight—and it was all over. They noticed that the more punishment Lucario took, the harder he fought back—as if he had no limit. Now he had dragged R.O.B. over to the edge of the Construct where there was a gap in the structure. There seemed to be a pocket where the irregular shape of the building did not meet the edge of the electric, blue portal it was emerging from. So Lucario cast R.O.B. down into the raw energy pooled at their feet. With flashing and sizzling, R.O.B.'s exo-skeleton melted away as the robot protested in its polite voice:

"Aggression detect-tect-tect-tect…" With violent sizzling and crackling the robot descended into the portal's depths never to be seen again.

The doppelgangers even stopped in their tracks to see what was going on. Slowly Lucario turned to face the four of them. Hovering towards them and lowering his head, Lucario flashed a vicious smile with his white, pointed teeth. Then, out of the smoke clearing from the energetic pool where R.O.B. was destroyed, a small, orange orb floated up to Lucario from behind. It glowed with a strange light and flashed just before forcibly entering Lucario's body through the skin. Lucario's upper body slumped for a minute and he hung his head. But then, when he opened his eyes they burned with that same orange glow. Lucario's aura changed to shine with every color of the spectrum so brilliantly that it bled out of his body tangibly—even Falco could see the aura emanating from his body. As though possessed by R.O.B.'s essence, Lucario raised up into the air and slowly turned around. The computer terminal, now ten meters in the air, opened to receive him and he began typing. Falco and Ness shot each other confused looks. Before they knew what they were doing they started falling back. But not fast enough. As Lucario turned back around to face them, every other archway in the Construct began to glow with energy. Then, a multitude of wire frame men of all shapes and sizes began pouring out of every opening.

Ness and Falco turned to run at top speed. Over his shoulder, Falco began scanning the mob to see a myriad of figures spilling out: from swordsman to space pirates, from gorillas to dragons, and from fuzzy animals to teenage girls toting golf clubs. All of them joined the doppelgangers in an excited pursuit of Ness and Falco.

"My target locator counts exactly 100..." Falco informed Ness with alarm before turning to face forward as they ran hurriedly.

"Who cares?" Ness shouted back with panic in his voice. "Run!"

"Where?" Falco questioned, "There's nowhere to go!"

Angrily Ness barked backwards with authority, "Away!"

"Right." Falco agreed.


	3. Chapter 3 - Penance, part I

_Chapter 3.1:

Penance, Part I

Sheik arose feeling disoriented—even more so than usual. Holding her head and squinting her eyes, she gradually revisited this 'reality.' She had been dreaming. In her dreams she was back in her home, Hyrule. But when she toured Hyrule castle, gazing out over her kingdom from its walls, something was out of place. In that dream state, it caught her attention though she didn't recognize it as foreign to the landscape until she awoke. She looked over the castle walls towards the Gerudo desert. But through a sandstorm she saw in the distance a great, white tower. Higher than any spire in Hyrule castle, the tower's peak peered out of the sandstorm and glinted in the light like a white sword piercing the sky itself. But that tower didn't exist. Shaking off the memory, Sheik remembered she had been speaking with a strange warrior from another age about the strange conditions of this new realm. Her newfound prison seemed to possess its own concept of day and night. Though she sensed a full cycle only lasted half a dozen hours or so. Recalling her Sheikah training, Sheik began to put together more support for how Snake could appear so distraught over his imprisonment. She had undergone sleep deprivation and sensory disorientation as a part of a program to prepare her to withstand interrogation without divulging useful information. Everything about this place echoed the principles of ideal conditions to conduct interrogation. Over time, the disconnect from reality and loss of a sense of time could lead to hopelessness and despair. _Is that the purpose of this place?_ If she was being watched at all times did they really expect her to eventually reveal her secrets without further persuasion? But these questions led Sheik's mind in a very disturbing direction: _What if they do have another card to play?_

"Day 2 in the alien realm…" Sheik muttered aloud. Gathering herself and sighing from the drowsiness, Sheik started breathing deeply to ready herself for action. After a few deep breaths and some stretching, Sheik began running in no particular direction to yet again see what there was to see. Snake had implied that she would not find him again, but if she could locate her next opponent before the fight she could gain a leg up on the competition. She did not like losing, after all. After about half an hour, Sheik grew fatigued and began to slow her pace to a jog. She had tried to hold a steady course in a straight line, but at this point she had no reference for how precisely she accomplished that. Now that she had slowed her pace, she became vaguely aware of noises in the distance over her quieted breathing. It sounded like a fight. A very one-sided fight. Rotating around slowly, Sheik focused her attention on detecting the precise direction of the sound.

HI-YAAAAA!

Sheik honed in on the direction and approached with caution. As she sauntered closer and closer, she considered a variety of possible responses—with half a dozen competing notions. Ultimately, she determined she needed to make contact before she could decide how to proceed. There was nothing to be gained by fleeing the scene. So Sheik maintained her approach to the sound of animals fighting. Through the haze, she saw an impossible shape fly past overhead. Halting in her stride like a deer that picked out the sound of the hunter, she lowered her center of gravity and quickly turned her head to follow. _That looked just like a flour sack with eyes!_ The heavy impact of the sack with the ground could be heard as it slid to a stop. Then Sheik heard in the direction it landed the sound of the sack getting hit at a very high speed like a warrior practicing strokes at the pell.

HI-YAAAAA!

"Yeah! Kill it!" A voice from behind shouted. Again the flinching sack flew past overhead, now in the opposite direction. "Bwahahahaha…" The high-pitched cackle unnerved Sheik, mostly because all she knew of the mysterious onlooker was he possessed two violent lackeys and a maniacal temperament. And she did **not** want to be caught in the middle like this—surrounded with no intel. Again the unfortunate sad-sack slid up to the feet of the first lackey, who pummeled it relentlessly. Then on the return strike, the lackey let out a sort of remorseful grunt like a wood-splitter embarrassed at missing the cord on his down-stroke. This time, the sack sailed low and slid to a stop at Sheik's feet—with its doleful eyes gazing into hers.

"Awwwuhhhh, that's no fun!" The lead voice chimed in again, "That didn't fly far at all. Where'd it go?" Startled, Sheik looked left and right to determine the best course of action. She slipped backwards the way she had come until the sack disappeared in the haze. But just before she disappeared from view, all three figures were visible at the edge of the haze. To Sheik's relief, the laughing 'maniac' was merely a small boy and his 'lackeys' appeared to be tiny forest creatures. Unfortunately, she was uncertain as to whether they sighted her. On her guard, Sheik backed away to a safe distance before circling about suddenly in an attempt to be unpredictable. "See, Bulbasaur?" Trainer whined, "Squirtle misfired. It hardly went anywhere. Oh well, Squirtle. That's why we practice. At least we have this fun toy to do it on. He just sits there making faces like a Wobbuffet without counter! Hahahaha …and he can't do a thing about it…" This time the little green creature sort of chuckled in agreement, but the blue one instead made a quizzical sigh. "What is it, Squirtle?" Trainer investigated. They turned their backs on the sack to head in the direction Sheik had been. The trio fanned out to search, with Squirtle leading the party. After spreading their search party out a bit, the shadow they missed appeared in a puff of smoke, holding Trainer from behind with a knife to his throat.

"SQUIRTLE-SQUIRRRRR!"

"Bulba-SAURRRRRRR!"

The two lackeys screamed their own names in anger. It was still a little disturbing to witness; though small, the creatures displayed a violent nature. The little green one glared hatefully through its jagged teeth and beady, red eyes… The bright, blue one also attempted to look scary. The one called 'Squirtle' possessed tiny arms and disproportionately large head and eyes. It growled fiercely and started foaming from its oversized mouth.

"What's that in your hand? Drop it!" Sheik shouted in Trainer's ear aggressively.

"Hehe, whatever you say, Rocket!" The young boy squinted his eyes shut as he laughed. He opened his hand, releasing the tiny red and white ball to the ground which cracked open at Sheik's feet. In a flash, a great shadow appeared behind Sheik and a hot breath sighed down the back of her neck. Turning her head slowly, Sheik looked into the glowing eyes of a small dragon. Sheik dropped her knife, as a sign of surrender, though she had dozens of others tucked into her suit. She raised her hands and let Trainer pull away.

"Hahaha, good job, Charizard!" Trainer praised him. "You thought you could capture me that easily? What, did ya forget how pokéballs work?" Sheik remained silent. In part disturbed by the youth's non-chalance in the face of death, in part to encourage this youngster to continue revealing his hand. But she hardly understood anything he was talking about.

"Well, by now you know what we do to Rockets! You're gonna tell me how to find Lucario! Charizard, go!" Oddly, the Trainer recaptured his two, smaller lackeys into their prison-spheres and he positioned himself in the distance at Charizard's flank. A device in Trainer's pack began playing dramatic music, and Charizard adopted a fighting stance—clearly squaring off with Sheik. Sheik also adopted a defensive stance but did not make a move or even draw a weapon.

"Come on! Where's your pokémon?" Trainer shouted with frustration. Sheik observed the combative nature of the youngster's culture and attempted to grasp what resemblance she bore to this 'Rocket.' But did not move or say anything further.

"Come on!" Trainer continued. "I'm sure you've got a Zubat? Ekans? No? Tell me you're not one of those Koffing trainers? Or do you have Meowth? What are you waiting for?" Sheik was irritated by the non-information Trainer was spewing. It wasn't even worth committing all these names to memory. She would have to guide the conversation at least a little if she was to learn anything useful. She replied,

"I am not this 'Rocket,' of whom you speak, Black Mage." Trainer paused and cocked his head to the side.

"That's just what a Rocket would say…" _Except for the Black Mage part…_ Trainer thought to himself, "Come on, you're dressed just like one!" Sheik had next to nothing to work with, knowing nothing of the boy's enemy. So she decided to find a common ground in order to establish a connection. Even a spy for Gannondorf would at least have to pretend to be imprisoned.

"I am trapped in this strange realm, just like you. I was pulled from my world, my people, and my age, and placed here with no context or consent. I am a prisoner seeking escape or a greater purpose—like you." The youngster didn't change his non-chalant posture. His head was cocked to the side and he relaxed his shoulders. His hands were in his pockets as he shrugged his whole upper body disinterestedly. He said,

"I don't know what you're talking about. My friend outside stuck me in here as a practical joke. He knows I'm after his Lucario, but he wanted to make it interesting. I'm sure he downloaded me into this computer game to have me test it out for him—he's a developer, you see. Honestly, I didn't even know he could download people into "Bill's PC!" But it's actually kinda fun. I really like the mini-games, like that 'Homerun Contest' with the sandbag over there…" Sheik was beside herself in confusion as she tried to register any of the things Trainer said. Nothing made any sense to her. She wondered if this was all made-up to confuse and disorient her. Both interrogations and counter-interrogations could be guarded by pouring out false information to mix in with the truth to disguise what was important. It was a strategy for disguising your motivations, but if that was the game, Sheik felt like she was losing since she struggled to maintain her cover in this unprecedented situation. After some hesitation, Trainer repeated, "So you haven't seen Lucario?"

"I know nothing of your black magic, but I can say the only being I have encountered here called himself differently. Tell me, who is this 'Lucario?' Is he a man or a creature like your companions?" Sheik asked. Trainer responded helpfully, and pulled out his pokédex,

"Oh, well look here:

Lucario – (FIGHT/STEEL) –Aura Pokémon –[ By reading the auras of all things, it can tell how others are feeling from over half a mile away. ]

Confused at how this strange technology could conjure a painting out of a looking glass, Sheik realized his age was far ahead of her own. Trainer could see the astonishment in Sheik's eyes and sought to comfort her,

"It's not black magic, it's just 'Science!" At this point, Sheik felt thought to herself, _If he is an agent of Gannondorf's, he is most ineffective_. It seemed that he was giving her specifications on a future opponent. Which would not behoove Gannondorf in this situation unless he had some sick notion of giving her a 'fair' fight he was certain she would lose.

"Have you seen this, how do you say it, pokeyman, in combat?" Sheik questioned further. Trainer replied without caution,

"Nah, but I heard it like, projects mind energy from its hands or something. And like, the more injured it gets, the stronger its motivation and the stronger the mind energy attacks get! Pretty cool, huh? That's why I want him. He sounds really powerful!" Sheik began putting the pieces together but sought confirmation,

"You can use more of your red prison-spheres to imprison the creature?" She asked.

"Uhhhh, my pokéballs? Yeah, sure, dude. That's the idea." Trainer responded.

"You believe that the magic of your device is sufficient to overpower this Lucario's magic?" Trainer's eyes glazed over. He thought to himself,

 _Here we go again… not dark magic, science! He's totally not getting it… SIGH. How annoying…_ So he conceded to agree with her so there would be no further argument, "Sure, dude. It's totally magical and stuff. But these pokéballs I have with me are like, not as strong as he is. So I have to use these guys with me to rough him up first." Sheik looked a little puzzled by something and Trainer just **knew** he was gonna ask another dumb question.

"But your pokébook just said that this Lucario's magic grows stronger as he takes injury. That is a contradiction with your strategy." Trainer was surprised at how quickly he was taking all this in, and yet was still clueless. Trainer just went along with it again in hopes of ending the conversation.

"Wow… I didn't think about that. You could be right!" _Or you could be a nincompoop!_ Trainer just smiled politely at the Ninja hoping he would lose interest as he had.

Sheik was encouraged that she was starting to understand his culture. So she continued,

"So your pokédex tells you of the sport near to you, you track the pokéman down, and trap it in your pokéball to take back to pokétown!" Trainer just stared at Sheik for a moment in disbelief. _Is he_ _ **seriously**_ _asking me that? Is he just messing with me?_ After a moment of silence, Sheik felt embarrassed that she clearly wasn't catching on as she thought. She rubbed the back of her neck and shrugged her shoulders. "So you believe that we were both captured in your prison-spheres by this Bill person?" Sheik asked at length. After some hesitation, Trainer replied, "Not really, man. If you don't know anything about Kanto, then I'm thinking you're just part of the game I'm in." Sheik raised an eyebrow underneath the shroud she wore over most of her face but her surprise was evident in her voice:

"If this Bill can create false people like me, he must be a very powerful dark magician. Just as another dark magician from my age placed me here to force me to fight for my life for his amusement." This was news to Trainer.

"Fight?" Trainer repeated with enthusiasm, inviting her to elaborate. Sheik was fairly disturbed to think she had no real answers to the many questions that would inevitably follow. But she saw no reason to alarm the boy in the same way Snake attempted with her during his melodramatic rant.

"You should expect to engage in daily combat in a special arena. The conditions seem to be that you cannot die, only experience severe pain in the process of facing a selection of powerful and varied warriors. That is as it was for me yesterday." The word 'yesterday' tasted false on her lips, but it was the easiest way to communicate that idea for now. In expectation of the boy being in need of comfort, Sheik paused in solemn silence.

"Sweet!" Trainer chimed enthusiastically. "We'd better continue our training, guys! We're gonna beat this game and catch Lucario! Thanks weird-sage-dude." Trainer grabbed the other pokéballs off his belt to release Squirtle and Bulbasaur. The pair fought over the sentient punching bag until Charizard took to the skies, clutching the sandbag in its claws. While Sheik tried to warn Trainer about the seriousness of the present situation, Trainer was distracted by Charizard circling around repeatedly to dive low over Squirtle and Bulbasaur, holding the sandbag just out of reach—taunting them. Trainer thought it was hysterical.

"Perhaps you don't understand. I have no reason to believe we can escape by simply defeating our foes in combat. I met a man who has been here far longer than I have and he seems to have lost all hope of escape." Sheik was reluctant to share to grim reality with such a small child. But she suspected he wasn't taking anything seriously. It was for his own good. This perception was confirmed by Trainer's response:

"Don't worry, dude. The way you beat a game like this is by beating each level. Once you know the trick, it's a piece of cake!" Strangely, Trainer's words served to comfort Sheik, even if he didn't seem to fully grasp the gravity of their shared predicament. So she decided to make the most of the situation by testing just how much Trainer was willing to share,

"Tell me more about yourself. If you will." Trainer agreed and told the newfound ninja of the tale of how a childhood rivalry led to him leaving his home to travel abroad at a very young age. He told her of his companions, how they came to meet, and how he held back Squirtle and Bulbasaur from taking their new form. Charizard had grown in maturity until he disobeyed Trainer—'evolving' to his current form out of impatience. But by defeating a gym leader, Trainer expected to regain Charizard's respect for his ability as leader. It all very surreal for Sheik, though she also bore a great weight on her shoulders since such a young age. It amused her that he still saw her as a male and seemed annoyed that she considered him as a child. But her attention turned when he revealed that his ambitions were to capture every pokémon in the world.

"What makes your ambitions different from that of the dark magicians? You also seek unlimited power. Who could resist you if you possessed every Pokémon? You even want the evil ones such as Lucario and this 'Mewtwo,' do you not?" Trainer was taken aback by this protest.

"Slow down, if I were Lucario's trainer, or even Mewtwo's, they wouldn't be 'evil.' So don't talk about what you don't understand!" Confused, Sheik responded apologetically:

"You are right. I do not understand. If I have offended you I apologize, but please explain yourself." Sheik paused to let Trainer elaborate. Trainer replied at length,

"My gramps always says no Pokémon is really good or evil in itself. They're like pets, ya know? Pokémon start off as helpless babies, they have to be raised—nurtured. It's really awesome, living every day with them. That's how you get them to trust you. You make memories together. As long as the memories are good, and you show them you'll always take care of them, they will be totally loyal to their trainer. So some people, like the Rockets, will use pokémon for their evil schemes. Really, it's up to the trainer to be good or evil." It became evident to Sheik then how Trainer could take offense to her accusation.

"I apologize," Sheik responded, "I did not mean to slander your name. However I still have some grave concerns about your worldview. How do I communicate this respectfully? You see, in my realm, benevolent deities created beings of great power—heroes. They instilled in each one Virtue and one Power. In their great wisdom, they divided the powers in the world among different agents—each with free will. Their goal was to enable the humans to govern themselves so those beings responsible for affecting the fate of the planet could relate with the human's plight. In this way the goddesses would also be free to move on to create other worlds. However, because of free will, one of the heroes was corrupted. He sought to exploit his power to take the other great powers of the Tri-force to make himself like a god. You see now the value of dividing the great powers among several wise leaders of virtue—heroes. There were two who could oppose the one who was corrupted and bring him back to his original purpose." Trainer didn't quite know what to say. All his life his rival quoted the same motivational phrase he did, "Gotta catch 'em all!" But now this boring adult wanted him to contemplate the socio-economic consequences of being the greatest trainer in the world. At the same time, it seemed like Sheik was right. He thought about the way technology had grown faster and faster every year. But it only made the scientists more and more ambitious. Until they finally developed Mewtwo…

Chills crept over Trainer's body as he remembered the horrific event that marked his culture. They truly empowered a virtue-less creature to such an irresponsible extent. As she said, Mewtwo was no hero. He wished they had goddesses watching over his planet, but it seemed hilariously doubtful. If there were any gods back home in Kanto, they didn't seem to be doing their job. In this prolonged silence, Sheik's eyes smiled at the youngster. _I knew there was a depth to him._ Sheik thought. _But as always it lied beneath the surface…_ For each one, their train of thought was interrupted by an unmistakable glimpse: an object momentarily appeared in the distance.

"Did you see that?" Trainer asked as they stared at each other in disbelief. Sheik nodded slowly. "Are you gonna go to it, too?" Trainer asked impulsively. After a brief hesitation, Sheik thought aloud:

"I dreamed of that tower. He said that I could not dream here…" Trainer smirked and replied brashly,

"That sounds like a 'Yes' to me!"

* * *

"Stay together!" Falco cried out over the noise of an army of footsteps giving chase. He and Ness fled like two kids that just broke open a beehive. Moments after the first of the shimmering, silver wire-frame men appeared shots flew past their heads. Against his better judgement, Falco peered over his shoulder as he ran. The mass of indistinguishable, polygonal bodies appeared to him like an avalanche of diamonds. He realized there was no way to anticipate the next volley of shots. "Serpentine!" Falco cried out to Ness.

"What?!" Ness called back, thoroughly confused. Falco turned his head to repeat himself so Ness could hear more clearly.

"Weave back and forth as you run!" No sooner had the words left his lips than Falco had doubts about that strategy. When he turned to face Ness, he realized how much slower Ness was. With his short legs, it was all Ness could do to run half of Falco's speed. When Ness began to weave a bit, it slowed him down even more. It became clear that the horde pursuing them contained individuals moving at vastly different speeds. On average, Falco could outrun the horde, though a few members could actually match his speed exactly. As for Ness, it seemed the majority could outrun him, though Falco couldn't be certain Ness had realized this yet. Worse still, from the way Ness was breathing, Falco could tell the kid couldn't keep this up for long.

Falco slowed his pace to let Ness catch up and took the opportunity to unleash a few volleys of laser-fire from his own pistol at the nearest targets—taking them by surprise. Following suit, Ness stopped briefly to unleash a gout of PK Fire, which scored a direct hit against a wire-frame Falco. It was more than a little disturbing to hear the screams coming from this imposter with Falco's exact voice. But for the one wire-frame man Ness slowed, the remaining ninety-nine gained ground. This prompted Falco to scold his actions:

"Just run!" Falco shouted. Ness called back defensively,

"Alright!" As the kid turned to flee, he was hit with a barrage of laser-fire, since he had stood in one place for too long. After the first few hits, which caused Ness to stagger, Falco intervened with his deflector shield. Buying precious time and damaging a few distant shooters, Falco got Ness back on his feet and running for his life.

"Move!" Falco spurred Ness on relentlessly. Too tired to argue, Ness lowered his head and let his little legs carry him as fast as they could without looking back. After a while, the sounds of the horde and the sight of lasers flying overhead grew more infrequent until they seemed to stop altogether. After a while, the pair was pushed to the physical limits of exhaustion until every step was an act of will. When Ness's exhaustion outweighed his immediate concern, he slowed to a walk and turned to look back in the direction of the pursuers. Falco heard his footsteps slow and was all too pleased to follow suit—trying not to appear to be breathing heavily. _So much running today._

"They're… PANT …gone!" Ness spoke between gasping breaths. "I don't even see their auras anywhere in the distance. Just the Tower and ADMIN." Both stood there trying to catch their breath. Falco thought to himself: _Something isn't right._

"Did we reach the haze?" Falco asked. "I can't see the Construct anymore." Ness replied enthusiastically,

"Yeah, they must not like the haze. Or maybe they're just there to keep people from messing with the Tower?" But it was all speculation; Falco stayed on his guard.

 _Maybe they are just territorial. It's not like they can pursue us in here anyway…_ Falco thought to Ness spoke up,

"Do you hear that?" They both lowered their heads in alert and grew silent. There was a distant shuffling sound coming from nowhere in particular.

"Run!" Falco yelled. Just a few meters behind, the first of the mass of bodies sprinting after them at full-steam became visible in the thick haze. Fueled by pure adrenaline and fear, Falco got his second wind. Without so much as looking back, he put as much distance between himself and the horde—quickly realizing he needed to disappear back into the haze if he was going to lose them. But their front-runners proved difficult to lose. By the time he figured out to combine changing directions, using cover fire, and the dash device to lose them, he sort of lost track of Ness.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The sound of Ness crying out from the haze in pain rang out. It stopped Falco in his tracks and the realization struck him as though he took a blow to the gut. _I just left him behind?!_ Falco turned left and right frantically to place the direction of Ness' screaming. Falco's frenzy was fueled by the weight of the knowledge that Ness was suffering for his incompetence. _Tell me this isn't happening!_

"Falco!" Ness wailed weakly. Falco had abandoned him to this demise in the haze and now Ness had no hope of escape. He was utterly surrounded by more wire-frame men than he could count. No matter what he did to resist them, he couldn't change anything. They simply would not die. They kept coming after him relentlessly with single-minded determination and apathy. When the first of the horde had kicked Ness to the ground, he recovered quickly and struck back with a vengeance. But two more challengers caught up for each one he fought back. He put up quite a fight, but in the end he was overcome. As a consequence, the poor boy was battered around endlessly until he could no longer defend himself. Then, they put the screws to him. It was unclear at first what their goal was for all this. Some held him down while others burned or electrocuted him until he blacked out. When he awoke, Ness realized the horde was dragging him off—apparently back to the Tower. But when he struggled, they dropped him on the ground and continued beating the living daylights out of him. It was a nightmare. The grim intent of the silent mob terrified him more than the fear of death. _What do they want from me?_

Out from the haze, a bright blue flash burst through three of the attackers. Falco appeared in its wake and kicked a fourth in the head to send him flying before Falco disappeared again. Forgetting about Ness for a moment, the robotic wire-frame men faced out into the haze and started searching in the direction Falco had run off in. Moments later, a burst of lasers and a flurry of strikes knocked down a grouping on the other side of Ness. The wire-frame men didn't even see Falco before he disappeared again, but the nearest ones aggressively rushed into the haze in pursuit. Ness realized Falco was deliberately thinning the herd. _He came back for me!_ Then, from a third direction, Falco again flanked the horde from the haze—striking from behind with calculated precision and lightning speed. Ness fought to clamber back to his feet while Falco cut a path towards him. Finally a trio of wire-frame men between Falco and Ness formed up to block Falco. One attacker caught Falco with a chain and dragged him in close as the others readied to strike. But Ness didn't give them the opportunity. Just when Falco closed his eyes flinching, the three assailants burst into flames. The smoke cleared to reveal the psychic boy shouldering a baseball bat. Ness retorted, " **That's** how you protect someone." Falco humbly replied,

"I'm **so** sorry, man. I don't know how I…"

"Save it!" Ness interrupted and the pair faced off with the entire horde, back to back. The horde's members lifelessly rose up and encircled the duo completely. "Remember, stay together!" Ness chided Falco. Falco noticed Ness bore a grim expression. Remaining stationary, Ness held the palms of his hands outstretched to each side and closed his eyes in concentration. The front lines of the enemy began firing a barrage of ranged weapons. Ness conjured a Psionic shield that hissed as with static. Playing off of Ness' actions, Falco improvised a cooperative strategy and pulled his pistol with one hand as he circled Ness—firing into the mob. For every barrage that was fired at Falco, he circled around behind Ness' shield which had the consequence of drawing a lot of fire into Ness' defensive shield. In fact, Ness managed to absorb the energetic laser, electric, and fire-based projectiles to heal his injuries while providing standing cover for Falco. In a short period of time, however, the circle closed.

The ring of assailants tightened their formation and closed in all around. Ness dropped his PSI shield to momentarily fire elemental blasts of PK Fire or PK Thunder, but for each time he lowered his shield they were quicker to counter with ranged attacks. Falco managed to beat back any who breached the perimeter of the circle they were holding with an approach of "The nail that sticks out most gets hammered." This slowed the progression of the wire-frame army by discouraging each individual from advancing. But inevitably the circle narrowed. Falco gave Ness a knowing look that this strategy wouldn't hold out forever, they needed to make a move. Falco holstered his pistol in anticipation of Ness unleashing a barrage of Psi energy. Some of the wire-frame figures also predicted this and fired a volley at the defenseless boy before he could raise his PSI shield again. But Falco intervened with his shield deflector—repelling the volley back at the firers. The last stand of heroes Ness and Falco was epic; however, it was unsustainable.

Finally, the mob crowded in around them and all at once were in range for close-combat. Falco grabbed Ness through his PSI shield and activated the dash device. Ness finally saw how it worked from within. Falco took Ness and leapt into a jump kick, locking out his forward leg. Then he used the device to boost his momentum like an impulse-jetpack from Ness' comic books. Falco led with his foot and let the device do all the work. Apparently the device was limited only by a recharge delay. Falco led Ness into the haze and the pair fled from the horde. Then, Falco led Ness in an arc to start circling the formation gradually. They both took mental notes about where their enemies were through the fog and went on the offensive.

This time working together, Falco again charged into range with his dash attack and fought his way back in hand-to-hand combat in tandem with Ness firing overwatch. With fireballs raining down around him, the wire-frame men were hard-pressed to land a blow of Falco's surprise attacks in this way. Then they would take to the haze again to outmaneuver the responding forces as the wire-frame men flooded towards the sound of the commotion. In this way they kept up the fight by refreshing their strategy and recirculating their approach. However, no matter how brilliant their strategy and how quickly they adapted to changes, Falco realized if they could not whittle down the horde and somehow remove individuals from returning to fight there was no point to any of this.

"We have to get back to the Tower!" Falco cried out. Ness objected:

"What?! Back there with ADMIN and the portal of death? I don't think so! Don't you know we can't die out here?" Ness raised a good point. But only now did he start to think that was why the horde was dragging him off before. _Were they trying to dispose of me in the portal?_ Falco argued:

"It's a risk we have to take. There's no way to end this unless I hack the terminal and deactivate these guys." After a pause, Ness questioned him,

"You can do that?" Falco shrugged in response. The physical gesture was barely noticeable while the two were sprinting flat out, but Ness could sense Falco's lack of confidence in the way his aura was flickering.

"In theory…" Falco added unconvincingly, "But I can't do it alone. Someone's gotta keep them off my back. The longer we wait, the weaker we will be!" Ness shook his head in disgust.

"No. way. It can't be worth the risk…" Ness complained. But Falco wouldn't take 'No' for an answer.

"Deal with it!" Falco demanded.

They seemed to have lost the horde, finally. Evidently they changed their approach and consolidated into one supercluster. It was very easy to avoid at this point because of the level of noise giving them away. Falco and Ness stayed quiet and didn't even feel the need to stay too far away from the mob. Perhaps this behavior would have disturbed them more if they observed that the entire community of wire-frame men seemed to change strategy in unison without the ability to communicate with one another…

"Which way to the Construct?" Falco asked. In response, Ness reluctantly gestured to the aura he saw. When Falco looked where Ness was pointing, he took a single step in that direction before freezing in horror. They didn't even register it as it happened, but the haze miles around vanished for only half a second. In that moment, Falco caught a glimpse of the Tower itself, the fiery body of the ADMIN using the terminal, and the entire horde of wire-frame men clustered between them and the Tower. All eyes were on the pair of heroes.

"Whoadangit!" Falco breathed involuntarily. He and Ness glanced at each other in disbelief. Their position was compromised. Naturally they took off running at a right angle to the mob. But no sooner had they cleared the scene than two figures blocked their path. It took Ness and Falco aback because it was as if they were staring into the faces of their colorless reflections.

"It's our doppelgangers…" Ness observed aloud.

WHOOSH

Before they could react, Falco was struck by PK Fire and was caught up in a pillar of flames.

"AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHH!"

Falco moaned in agony as he burned—rolling around on the ground. Despite his fire-retardant jacket, Falco felt mortal pain from the sustained flame because the fire seemed to erupt from within his clothes. Wire-frame Ness prepared to attack again, but Ness stood in the path and raised his psionic shield. At which time wire-frame Falco stepped in—grabbing Ness from behind. Wire-frame Ness took out a baseball bat and walked over to Ness. Raising PK Thunder up and out of the top of his head, Ness guided it around his back towards Falco. But before he could break himself free, wire-frame Ness hit him in the gut with the bat.

"Hrrrrrrrrrrngh!"

Ness had the wind knocked out of him and fell to the ground in pain—his electric orb dispersing. As the flames consuming Falco began to die down, Falco looked up to see wire-frame Ness approaching him with the baseball bat slowly while the background was filled in with a hundred blank faces surrounding them. In the moment he watched Ness' doppelganger raise the bat up over his head, Falco's mind was racing a lightyear a minute. It was only then, that Falco could clearly perceive the consequences of the series of his mistakes. Regrets piled up on him like wrinkles on the aged. He should have never left the Tower. After he left, he should not have turned back. _Effective leaders commit to their decisions and accept the consequences…_ He knew that the doppelgangers grew more powerful by dueling their counterparts. Now it became obvious that they should have split up and fought each other's doppelganger instead—thereby preventing their evolution. _Wise leaders can avoid playing into their enemy's hand…_ But worst of all he faced his failure to guard Ness. He could hear the cries for help of Ness, but was now powerless to help. He couldn't forgive himself for leaving Ness behind. _Inspirational leaders fortify morale by valuing every team member_...

 _Typical Falco, watch out for your own tail and blame everything on your team. But that just doesn't work out when you're the leader…_

He heard Fox's words echoing through his mind again and again. In a vengeful rage, Falco rallied himself and fought through the excruciating pain. Placing his palms flat on the ground, Falco swung his lower half around to sweep wire-frame Ness' legs. Without hesitation, he sailed into his doppelganger with a flying kick. Falco grabbed Ness and helped him to his feet.

"Run, kid!" He cried and charged the line of wire-frame men. With Falco's aggression attracting the horde's attention, he impacted the mob with his dash attack but got stopped in the heart of them and overcome immediately. The last thing Ness could see was a gorilla pinned him down and he disappeared in the sea of shimmering bodies. Ness fled the scene as fast as his feet could carry him, but wire-frame Falco tackled him to the ground after only a few paces. The despair that gripped Falco's heart was nothing compared to what he would feel when he yet again heard Ness' cries. He couldn't do anything now. _Some leader I am. I couldn't save one kid. There's just too many of them…_

* * *

Thank you all for your patience this month. This chapter proved to take on a life of its own. I think you will find it as addictive and compelling in reading it as I did writing it. Here is the first half. Due to its great length and dramatic nature, I have chosen to break it up into halves. I will post the second half of this work before the month is up. Enjoy and Happy Holidays.


	4. Chapter 3 - Penance, Part II

_Chapter 3.2:

Penance, Part II

" _Watch your approach, Fox. You're exceeding the minimum safe distance!" Peppy radioed a word of caution from the relative safety of the bridge of the Lylat Cruiser "Great Fox"- the flagship of Fox's starfleet. This massive vessel was the strategic command and long-range transport vehicle used to dock the personal spacecraft, so-called "Arwings," for refueling. Falco rolled his eyes at Peppy's words of caution._

There is no 'minimum safe distance' from these things. Why don't they just call this assignment what it is? We're glorified storm-chasers…

" _Can we be certain this debris is part of an Aberrant form?" Fox cooly requested while sailing closer to their target. Fox piloted the lead Arwing with Falco and Slippy following him in a loose formation._

" _Of course, there is no 'certainty' when it comes to the detection of these phenomena, but we are detecting footprints."_

" _What's that supposed to mean?" Slippy demanded in a confused tone._

" _Geez! Turn down your mic, Slippy, you're gonna make my ears bleed!" Falco complained. "Don't you ever read the briefings? 'Footprints' refer to the echoes we can detect in space. Aberrant forms interact with surrounding dark matter when they move, leaving ripples where they move in a characteristic way. That's how we forecast their predicted movements." Falco added. Peppy chimed in:_

" _It's the closest thing to a smoking gun that you can get. This quadrant's dark matter seems to be resonating more and more the closer we get to that asteroid formation."_

 _Despite their sophisticated training the crew received for such a mission, Fox's Exploratory Squadron hardly felt qualified for such an encounter—this was still a first for them. To be fair, Aberrant forms were very poorly understood in any system—a subject of campfire stories. They drifted unpredictably through regions of space's frontiers few dared to venture through. They were the obstacles on the borders of star charts akin to warnings of 'here be monsters' as in days of old. As with such legends, they were hardly credible threats since exaggerations and folklore regarding them abounded. Despite the superstition and intrigue associated with the few encounters in recorded history, it was undeniable that a handful of colonies had vanished overnight when an Aberrant Form passed through their system. The anonymity of their name came about because no man or drone had ever made visual contact and survived to give report. Officially, Aberrant Forms were classified as rare, astral phenomena with the character of a natural disaster—though some argued they demonstrated response to stimuli, possibly even intelligence. But the historic Aberrant forms Baccoon and Goras had left their undeniable marks behind, so that none could cast aside all fears. Everyone knew the story of the destruction of planet Titania from which all life was said to originate._

" _Remember, crew…" Fox announced as they approached visual range, "…we volunteered for this assignment because this is a rare chance to get a glimpse of a poorly understood phenomena."_

You volunteered here, Fox, there was no 'we… _' Falco thought to himself. Fox continued,_

" _Our objective is to observe and report the physical nature and assess the possibility of behavior..." Falco interrupted,_

" _Don't tell me we're gonna poke it with a stick…" After a moment of hesitation, Fox resumed, ignoring Falco._

"… _the priority is forecasting the intended targets of the system and making a full-report without engaging. I repeat, do not engage the Aberrant Form except by my order. Do not arm your weapon systems in case the form perceives that as an act of aggression." Fox switched his communicator to a private channel with Falco. "Hey, Falco…"_

" _What?" Falco responded defensively. Fox addressed him in a calm but firm tone,_

" _I get your concern, but I'm not gonna take lip from you on mission. Don't undermine my decisions while we're on assignment. If you question operational orders in the moment it can jeopardize the op. Show a little respect." Falco replied with excessive decorum,_

" _Yes, Sir, Captain, Sir."_

" _Don't be like that, Falco." Fox replied. "I need you to trust me. I'm not endangering our lives needlessly. This is about keeping colonists safe on this side of the galaxy and understanding the enemy." Falco grumbled reluctantly,_

" _Alright, Fox, have it your way. Just let the record show that your cryptotechnician thinks it's an unnecessary risk."_

" _My cryptotech thinks trying local food is an unnecessary risk…." Fox chided Falco before closing out the private chat. "Understood, Fox out."_

 _As the Cornerian Exploratory Squadron closed the distance with the unknown quantity, their radars began to pick up a signal. The oval marker on the edge of their radar expanded to an enormous blob as they grew approached it. In silence, the crew simultaneously peered up from their radars with trepidation as they saw the shape out the cockpit in the corner of their eyes—it was an aggregation of shimmering, metallic meteorites. The black of space lent no reference for size, but the nearer they flew to the mass, the vaster and more distant it became to their eyes._

" _It just looks like a pile of rocks!" Slippy whined. Fox added,_

" _It does appear to be an organic form of natural origins. But remember Andross specialized in experimentation with biomechanics. Check for any signs of artificial construction."_

" _Fox, our scans are useless so far. We have its size and position, but our instruments can't see past the surface." Peppy reported. "Either the material is a stealth-grade, artificial alloy or the object is putting up an electromagnetic field around itself to interfere with our scanners."_

" _No clear signs of intelligence yet, crew. We need to get closer. Approach with caution." Fox announced as he led the Arwing formation alongside the meteor. Even at cruising speed they were barely catching up to the form. They now matched its precise vector and strafed closer to it like a patrol ship compelling smugglers to reduce velocity and surrender their contraband._

" _It's accelerating!" Slippy yelled. Falco pulled his headset away from his ear in discomfort and said with a sneer:_

" _Yeah, we can all see it, Slippy. Does that count as behavior, Fox?" Fox responded non-chalantly,_

" _Nice try, Falco. We're not falling back to report that it changed speed. Corneria wants a real threat assessment and I want to assess a_ _ **real threat**_ _before tucking tail and running." Fox led the team in matching the form's acceleration. Boosting from cruising speed, the fleet tapped into a greater portion of their reserve energy._

" _Turbulence ahead, crew. I'm posting a readout to your visors." Slippy warned. Her arwing was uniquely fitted with a more sophisticated targeting array and transmitter to enhance the scanning capabilities of the Great Fox cruiser. Her role on the team was micro-navigation. She didn't select the destinations, only the pathway. She was responsible for re-routing the fleet to avoid unnecessary obstacles to minimize risk and manage energy reserves, all the while remaining tethered to the Great Fox by her high-fidelity receiver-transmitter array. Occasionally in space fresh debris fields would be present before gravitation inevitably collected their particles into meteorites. Here the crew was passing through a dusting of recently disintegrated asteroid with different qualities from that of the Aberrant Form. Dense particles in space can be tremendously destructive to an unshielded structure, based on their mass, since spacecraft travel at such high speeds. "No worries, crew, the turbulence is nothing your shields can't handle. Hey, Captain. The form in question has been experiencing repeated minor collisions. But its surface isn't undergoing even minor erosion effects. It is maintaining its integrity completely. It isn't even accumulating mass."_

" _How is that possible, Falco? Is the Aberrant Form shielded like us?" Fox inquired._

" _That would be my explanation." Falco replied briefly, staring out the cockpit at the form in wonder._

 _At length, the fleet managed to exceed the speed of the Aberrant Form again. As they closed the distance, each crew member wondered what they would do when they finally reached it. But before it came to that, the form took a dive._

" _It's performing evasive maneuvers!" Slippy shouted into the mic. Without hesitation, Star Fox dove after the Aberrant Form and his wingmen followed. The form seemed to be weaving deliberately into the path of debris fields. Since the Aberrant Form was so much larger, this turbulence shook the arwings around more than it._

" _We're losing it!" Fox cried out. "Slippy, highlight a course for us excluding the debris fields but aiming into the heart of their concentration. He is going to lead us deeper in, so let's see if we can head it off!"_

" _I'm a step ahead of you, sir." Slippy chimed frantically. "Posting to your visors now." This targeting technology displayed a series of rings in the eyes of each pilot at various distances to guide them through. The elaborate system allowed one crew member to chart a 3-dimensional course and for each fleet member to be guided through chokepoints safely. As long as each pilot could stay inside their respective rings at the critical period, they could navigate safely through a variety of labyrinthine field of debris. The ability to maneuver in adherence with these targeting systems was the focus of most pilot academies' virtual training regimens._

 _Peppy radioed in to the team, "The Great Fox can't keep up with these maneuvers, Captain. I'm breaking off of the pursuit. Threat assessment will be diverted to COMM Officer Slippy until I can get the Great Fox back in range."_

" _Acknowledged." Fox replied robotically. It took a great deal of concentration for most pilots to overtake an adversary under these conditions. But this crew possessed some exceptional pilots. For instance, Falco chose this moment to transfer steering controls from the more precise default to a one-handed joystick. Though it made holding the turns much more difficult, Falco knew how to exploit the system. Even if he didn't make it into his ring every time, he used the display to anticipate where his crewmates would be. This liberated a free hand to allow him to change some settings on his communicator—specifically, to navigate through the communications menus in order to mute the volume of Slippy's transmissions. Though no one in the academy would describe anything about this as 'safe,' this was not the first time Falco charted his own course._

 _Weaving in and out of debris fields, staying on their outskirts, the arwing formation again closed the distance to the Aberrant Form. At this point, Falco felt the need to raise a growing concern._

" _Fox, I've got a threat assessment for you. If the Aberrant Form does possess its own electromagnetic field, a craft of that size could easily weaponize that capability. Were they to drop their shield with an energetic burst, we could be looking at an electromagnetic pulse—an EMP. That means it could disable the Arwing's engines, steering, weapons, and life support simultaneously… …as well as communications and distress beacon transmissions. In other words, while Peppy would be sifting through the quadrant looking for a visual, we take on radiation and die of exposure or because we drifted into a star before he could locate us. How close do you really wanna get?"_

" _Just close enough to poke it with a stick…" Fox sneered. Falco smirked and shook his head._ Why did I volunteer for this outfit?

 _As Fox had anticipated, the aberrant form was exhibiting clearly deliberate, evasive behavior. The crew accurately headed it off by steering into the heart of the debris clusters. Now they were catching it. Fox peeked out of the cockpit to see the form as he pulled up alongside it. Fox's white, pointed teeth flashed in a mischievous grin as he considered this was the first time the aberrant form could not escape its pursuers._

" _Evasive maneuvers! I'm detecting internal movement. It could be arming weapons!" Slippy shouted. Falco raised an eyebrow when he saw her round eyes bulging out of her head and wondered what she was freaking out about—he even considered turning her volume back up. But as Fox's wingman, he held formation. Fox had the guts to not change course. It is said that everyone has a flight or fight reflex, but Fox had a different reflexive behavior—he paused in the face of danger to see what would happen next. That instinct enabled him to stare-down, size-up, and bluff his enemies and rivals all the way to Captain by feigning limitless courage in their eyes. Now, it let him take in what was really happening without being reactive. Out his cockpit, Fox watched some of the asteroids fixed to the rear of the form began sliding out of position. Three elliptical holes were opened up at the rear to reveal a brilliant, white light streaming out from within as though the asteroids were concealing a small star. The blinding light forced the arwing fleet to avert their eyes from direct contact._

" _Break formation!" Fox called out. Falco and Slippy parted to their respective sides, but rather than dive in accordance with their protocol for breaking formation, Fox swerved in towards the form and directed his craft towards the elliptical opening._

" _Engage cobalt visors." Falco ordered the crew. He initiated the security measure and an icon appeared on the rest of the crew's visors to highlight the option. Fox engaged the visor as he armed a missile on the approach. The dark-blue visor shielded the cockpit to protect the pilots from star-blindness. Gazing into the source of the light, Fox launched the missile manually since he could not lock on to the hollow within the form. After the missile vanished amidst the light, the aberrant form burst away from them with unparalleled acceleration. Simultaneously, it shed clusters of metallic asteroids that sailed in all directions. Before they could otherwise respond, every pilot was forced to engage in extreme evasive maneuvers._

 _Back in the academy they practically memorized the arwing manuals. So every pilot knew that at cruising speeds the crafts were 'locked' in their trajectories. At those velocities, evasive maneuvers were prohibited because the arwing's handling capabilities exceeded survivable G forces for their pilots. However, the Cornerian Exploratory Squadron's Captain did not accept other people's judgement calls. He had long ago authorized Falco to 'jailbreak' the team's arwing's controls to enable evasive maneuvers at any speed, even beyond their pilot's physical limits. As such, Fox's team had occasionally performed tailored training exercises off the books to glean some experience in this dangerous art few attempted. Slippy was fortunate enough to be able to accelerate fast enough to outrun the asteroids nearest to her. Falco put his craft into a dizzying tailspin to avoid multiple asteroids. Fox dodged and weaved around them one at a time while hailing Peppy on the communicator: "Alright, Peppy, I'm calling in the cavalry!" But the asteroids proved difficult to avoid. Little did they know, that because they were composed of conductive materials, the asteroids stored a strong, magnetic charge. So within a certain active range, the asteroid chunks accelerated towards the arwings with an attractive magnetic force._

" _Watch out!" Fox cried out. "They're magnetic!"_

 _Slippy looked in her rear camera to see the asteroid on her tail was actually catching up to her._

" _Whoa!" Slippy shouted. "It's on my tail! Help, Falco!" Meanwhile, Falco was trying to pull himself out of the tailspin and didn't even hear her cry for help. Fox broke off pursuit, perceiving that Falco wasn't responding. From behind, the asteroid bumped into Slippy's shield, knocking her ship around. Her shields repelled it, but not very far, and the closer the asteroid got to her ship, the stronger the force of attraction became. So with each bump, a great deal of Slippy's energy was sapped by the shield being used to repel the great magnet. Slippy scrambled with her controls to override safety protocols and deactivated her shield. Slowly, the asteroid collided with her ship from behind and she cut her engines. The arwing groaned as the magnetic rock rolled under the its body and yanked the nose of the craft downwards—wherethe flat underside slammed into the asteroid forcefully. For a moment, Slippy was just tumbling through space belly-up—anchored to an asteroid. Her communicator was pulled off of her head and magnetized to the floor._

"… _Repeat… HISS …your shields online, now!" Slippy could hear the transmission coming through the earpiece of her communicator on the floor. Slippy turned around in her seat to see Fox's craft floating behind her, upside-down. Slippy engaged her shields again, ignoring the 'energy critically low' warnings onscreen. Fox launched a concussion missile into the asteroid's center of mass, causing it to disintegrate into dust that dissipated against Slippy's shield._

" _You alive, Slippy?" Fox asked. Slippy sighed with relief._

" _Better than Falco will be when I get my hands on him…" she replied. "Where is the birdman, anyways?" Fox and Slippy checked their radars to realize Falco was just below them in a tight spiral. The magnetic rock was close enough to Falco to interfere with his controls and presently he was flying in an ever-decreasing spiral—like debris circling the drain faster and faster. Even Fox couldn't hear from Falco any more than the hiss of static in the earpiece from magnetic interference._

" _That asteroid is spewing out chaff, steer clear but lend support!" Fox cried out to Slippy. The pair of them broke off and made strafing runs on the asteroid tailing Falco—shearing its surface with plasma lasers. However, due to the highly reflective surface of the asteroid, it reflected most of the light-based projectiles energy with dangerous unpredictability._

" _Careful, Fox." Slippy cautioned, "They're reflective. I don't think my shields can take another hit at this energy level…" Fox didn't have time to apologize, instead he dove to pursue Falco. He could see in Falco's cockpit that the pilot was still conscious, but his arwing's auto-pilot seemed to be malfunctioning because the nearby asteroid chalked the ship with a heavy dusting of magnetic filings. Fox winced when he saw the visible layer of dust sticking to the ship; he knew there wasn't much he could do for Falco, but the aberrant form was escaping. As fox puzzled momentarily about his next action, he imagined the conditions Falco must be experiencing._ If he can just fight the G forces long enough, he can disable auto-pilot and reverse the spin of his arwing…

 _The Falco was growing exceedingly light-headed. He could hardly move his hands back to the controls under the G forces pushing against him with increasing intensity. He couldn't even think clearly. So he just reacted. Forcing himself to cough, Falco exploited this biological quirk to force the muscles in his neck to help his heart move blood back into his head. He had failed to disengage auto-pilot (he wasn't even using it when all this started), as it was clearly non-responsive. So instead, he reset control of the craft back to the custom joystick apparatus he had installed. Since it wasn't wired into the auto-pilot the way the computer controls were, he bypassed the malfunctioning system. But when Falco's vision blacked out, he threw his weight against the joystick and passed out. When Falco awoke, he realized that it had only been a couple of seconds since he redirected the arwing from a clockwise spiral to a counterclockwise one. The change in momentum rushed blood back in to his head and the asteroid that latched onto his wake like a leech was thrown clear._

 _Fox's voice could be heard over the headset,_

" _Repeat, come in, Falco!" Falco sounded a bit ill when he responded to his captain. But they were relieved that he pulled it off nonetheless. With all the magnetic chaff clinging to his ship, systems were slow in coming back online._

" _Do a barrel roll!" Peppy radioed in from the Great Fox._

" _What are you talking about?" Falco questioned the old coot's bizarre advice. "Oh, you mean for the chaff?" Much to his surprise, that seemed to do the trick._

" _I do know a few things, youngster." Peppy chided._

 _Now with all his pilots back online, Fox was ready for round two. He called the arwing squadron back into formation and accelerated to match the speed of the aberrant form, but it soon became evident that was impossible. Continual acceleration could not reach those speeds before depleting their energy stores entirely and that approach would leave no energy for other uses like weapons or shielding reinforcement. In fact, Slippy couldn't really afford to even run a threat assessment diagnostic if they could get in range with her energy stores so low._

" _The cavalry's here, Captain!" Peppy hollered as a distortion flowed past their crafts. The Great Fox engaged its jump drive to catch up to the aberrant form. Such cruisers had the technology to manipulate spacetime like a fabric by pulling two positions closer together. These 'jump drives' allowed only the largest of craft to move about much faster and with far less resources consumed which made their flagship the ideal long-range transport for the fleet. The Great Fox now headed off the aberrant form by dropping in out of nowhere ahead of it and presenting the cruisers left flank towards the target. "Open fire, all cannons!" The 6 parallel guns of the Great Fox's 'Broadside' weapon was powered by a series of onboard nuclear reactors. It utilized the destructive force of cosmic rays to bombard its enemies with highly focused radioactive particles. When focused on a single point it was like a can-opener for electromagnetic shielding—spelling doom for the personnel within if they didn't surrender before life support failed from overexposure. Sequential explosions wracked the surface of the aberrant form and it stopped dead in its tracks. Hundreds of minor asteroids broke off its surface and converged on the Great Fox under magnetic attraction._

" _Fire at will!" Peppy called to his crew, who enabled the laser auto-turrets to select targets. After a great deal of accurate firing, hundreds of arwing-sized asteroids became thousands of missile-sized metal projectiles. When the arwing squadron caught up to the Great Fox, Fox looked on as the cruiser's formidable shielding lit up with a peppering of impacts from thousands of asteroid chunks. Peppy's weathered voice came in on the radio,_

" _My crew tells me we can't take another barrage like that. At least not until reactors can recharge our energy stores. Orders, sir?" Fox paused to consider. He activated the return protocol on the probe-missile he had fired._

" _Maintain your distance but circle 'round and pick us up. We poked it with a stick, now let's survive the encounter to report. Slippy, I'm sending the probe to your craft, let's relay it to Peppy so he can relay it to Command on Corneria in case the aberrant Form has other plans for us. Falco, you and I will escort Slippy back to the Great Fox, since she won't have the energy to operate weapons or shields while she is using engines and COMM's. Let's wrap it up." Fox concluded. Falco replied,_

" _With a red ribbon, Cap." So they formed up on Slippy's flanks and met the probe in the middle. They hadn't though much of the aberrant form's movements as it sat their rotating like a spinning planet. But when they realized they were looking at the battle damages of the Great Fox's battery, they considered that it may indeed have a facing. At that moment, out of the streams of light pouring out towards them, a cloud of hundreds of missiles arced towards Slippy's craft._

" _Move!" Fox screamed through the headset. Slippy dashed towards the Great Fox, pushing the engines while transmitting the probe's threat assessment to the Great Fox. She rationed the energy on the engines to diminish exponentially and charted a course so that she could drift into the loading dock on empty but kept the energy to the transmitter steady for the sake of the mission. Fox and Falco opened fire on the missiles where they clustered the most to take out two or three in one shot._

" _There's too many of them!" Falco shouted._

" _Form up on me!" Fox replied. Flying towards the missiles, Fox and Falco broke off-course in an arc cutting in front of Slippy. Putting their necks on the line, the pair led the supercluster of seeking missiles away from Slippy and the probe. However, one single missile slipped past them and locked on the Slippy's craft instead._

" _Watch out!" Peppy called out to Slippy as the Great Fox's auto-turrets locked on to the missile._

 _BOOM_

 _In an electric-blue cloud of plasma and lightning, arcs shot out of Slippy's arwing and the craft went silent as space. Rather than explode, the arwing lost all electricity. Slippy's shield dissipated and no one could pick up any transmissions from her. The disruptive EMP could have even wiped the probe's datastore—the full extent of the damages was unknown. Falco recognized the threat flying behind them, one missile would down the shield's circuits and a second could permanently disable the ships communications and jump-drive, in which case the whole team would be stranded in this far corner of space with no jump drive and almost no power in the arwings. Peppy dispatched a pair of drones that approached Slippy's drifting arwing. The unmanned vehicles scooped her up and loaded her ship into the Loading Dock._

 _With hundreds of similar heat-seeking EMP's on their tails, Fox and Falco pushed their arwings to the limit to avoid the supercluster as a formation._

" _So, what's the play, here?" Falco asked Fox nervously. Fox redirected the pair of arwings on an arc that intersected the aberrant form._

" _We've got to keep it off their backs…" Fox replied concisely. As they approached the form with blinding speed in a strafing run, they broke off abruptly and launched a full battery of concussion missiles into the hollow. The tailing missiles cut the corner more sharply than Fox and Falco did and had reduced the distance between them. As the two ace pilots attracted the malevolent attention of the most dangerous entity in the known universe, Falco had some doubts about the precise nature of their apparent impromptu suicide mission._

" _Seriously, Cap, what's the plan?" Falco questioned again. Peppy alerted Fox,_

" _Broadside is recharged, Captain."_

" _No…" Fox replied. "Use the reactors to power the jump drive. Jump to the next quadrant over and await further instruction." Fox commanded robotically._

Is this it? _Falco wondered._ A sacrifice play? _Fox continued,_

" _Recover whatever data you can off the probe and relay it to base. If you don't hear from us in an hour, proceed to Corneria without us."_

" _Yes, sir." Peppy replied and the Great Fox vanished from sight, creating a bubble of distortion that bent the ambient light in its wake._

" _Falco, break formation and head in the opposite direction from me." Fox ordered his friend. Without a word, they both arced ninety degrees in synchronous and accelerated to cruising speed. The supercluster of missiles parted into two and they each pursued a different arwing._

" _Now listen to me carefully…" Fox advised. Falco rolled his eyes as he rolled the arwing._ Now he wants to tell me what's going on, when we're ducking and weaving for our lives. You couldn't explain your "master-plan" before now? Probably because you're just making it all up as you go, like always. _Fox continued,_

" _When I give the signal I want you to double-back and fly towards me. In fact, fly exactly to my vector—on a collision course."_

" _Say again?!" Falco objected,_

" _Listen, we don't have time to do this now. I need you to trust me! …Now!" So Falco shut up and set his jaw. He pulled the craft into a half-loop so tight that he blacked out. When he came to seconds later, he was somewhat delighted to find himself alive and rolled the ship over. But then his heart sank again as he read an error message: "AUTOPILOT UNRESPONSIVE." Falco thought to himself,_

Of course! Just what I need… That chaff really screwed up my navigation… _Instead, he set the target lock to Fox's craft and steered towards the indicator. Very precisely, Falco sailed through the very center of each ring. He knew it was getting close. This maneuver had to be perfect. Falco reprogrammed the targeting rings to appear much smaller. The arwing warned 'collision imminent' and Falco knew he would soon see Fox—perhaps they would even touch. But suppressing the instinct to look out the cockpit, Falco focused only on the target locator and guided his craft for Fox's vector. He could tell Fox was flying so accurately that he must be on auto-pilot. Behind Fox, his half of the missile cloud trailed him very nearly in a mathematically distributed formation. Falco then imagined the cloud tailing himself and the gravity of the situation began to get to him…_

 _Just as Falco knew he could see Fox's Arwing out of the corner of his eye, Falco struggled to hold course against his nerves:_

" _Aaaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhh!"_

 _BOOM_

 _Fox hit Falco's shields with a laser salvo. The lasers shifted the momentum of Falco's ship at the last instant enough that they narrowly missed a collision. In fact, the craft literally scraped by one another and Falco reflexively course-corrected upwards and right into Fox's wake. The fiery turbulence rocked Falco's arwing for the instant before a greater explosion from behind added to the turbulence. In the brief instant Fox and Falco intersected, the missiles sought to reacquire a closer target. But as Fox and Falco flew into each other's wakes, Falco realized they had disguised their heat signatures. The missiles were programmed not to fly into the wakes of other ships in order to avoid premature detonation, so Fox avoided hitting Falco's cloud and vice-versa. Furthermore, the strategy worked on another level. The mathematic distribution was symmetric in both clouds, so when the missiles heading at opposite speeds and positions lost all targets and stalled while on-course for a collision, every missile was taken out as a result of the primary collisions or resulting explosions._

" _Ah-Hahahaha!" Falco laughed nervously. "You reckless son of a…" Fox interrupted,_

" _How's it feel to get shot down by your own captain? Huh? Bet you call me 'sir' from now on…" Fox laughed hysterically. He was just as relieved by their success as he was surprised. Falco called Fox out,_

" _You're insane! I mean, I always had my doubts before, but this proves it!" Falco thought to himself,_ Cap's tough as nails… _Fox replied cooly,_

" _So if I'm insane, does that mean you don't want to go out for drinks when we get back?" Falco responded,_

" _You're buyin'!" Fox smiled and said,_

" _Well, so long as you promise not to include 'Captain shot my vessel' in your ship's log…"_

" _Seriously, Cap," Falco asked: "How do you always seem to know what to do in these impossible situations? When to split up? When to form up?" Fox chuckled to himself, thoroughly amused by the idea that instinct could be put into words._

" _You know I served for my father for years before his final mission?"_

" _Yeah, I know." Falco responded quietly. He remembered the story of how Fox's dad had been assassinated years ago._

" _I guess I got my instincts from him. He used to say: Being decisive is better than being right."_

Falco faded in and out of consciousness. The more lucid he was, the more pain he felt. He had thought it was agonizing to hear Ness' screams. But the silence was far worse. He had no sense of time, only pain and regret. Furthermore, out of the glimpses he could tell that he was being dragged off to the Tower. He was already out of the haze, crowd-surfing atop the wire-frame mob. He mostly was jostled awake when they carelessly dropped him to the ground. Inevitably a few would start kicking him in the head or ribs only to pick him back up after he would pass out again—his body in shock from excessive pain. His mind couldn't cope. Again, he was jostled awake by being dropped to the ground. It was sublime, what happened next… It was as if the horde was peeled back to reveal the light of day; it was as if the veil of despair was torn to let in a glimmer of hope. To the left and the right, color swept out the greys. Brilliant red fire, cool blue waters, and green leaves appeared all around engulfing the sea of grey.

Finally, when Falco came to, a young schoolboy lifted up his head and asked him,

"Hey, dude. Are you alright?" Falco was certain it was Ness at first. But as his vision grew less blurry it became clear this boy was taller and more slender than Ness and was wearing a different outfit altogether.

"Who are you?" Falco asked.

"Call me Trainer." The kid responded. He helped Falco to his feet and gave Falco a cheeseburger and a ray gun he found earlier. "Here, this should help!" Falco perked up immediately. He felt strangely better after eating the cheeseburger. "So look," Trainer continued "Me and Ninja-dude are here to help. We saw the Tower and came to check it out, but now we gotta get back to the fog! Come on." Falco engaged the nearest of the wire-frame men in close-combat. They had effectively scattered the wire-frame mob with the help of Trainer's three elemental creatures. Falco couldn't pick out in the commotion where the Ninja was, but a few energetic explosions suggested there was a group battling Ness in the distance.

"Thanks for your help, but that's no good, kid. Get me to the Ninja-dude and we'll work out a better plan!"

"Sure thing!" Trainer replied cheerily. "Come on, guys!" All three pokémon formed up and unleashed their elements in combination to cut a path through the densest part of the horde. Falco plowed through and dashed through any leftovers that got in his way.

"Have your guys stay away from any polygons shaped like your creatures. They grow stronger by copying our techniques!" Falco warned Trainer. Trainer nodded gratefully and continued following in Falco's footsteps. In the distance, Falco saw a group surrounding someone as if they were dog-piling him. Then, in an explosive blast, the mob went flying in all directions as a dark figure launched straight up into the air. Falco was surprised to see that the figure of the emerging ninja was clearly that of a slender, sexy woman with a long, blonde braid tucked behind her exotic veil.

 _This day just gets better and better…_ Falco thought to himself. Sheik brandished a knife and cut a path to Falco's position.

"I am pleased you are safe. You will be glad to know I have located your companion." Sheik announced briskly. With an exaggeratedly smooth intonation, Falco replied,

"Oh, no. I'm single, actually. But I do need to rescue that kid…" Sheik just stood there dumbfounded for a moment. Moving on, she continued to posit their strategy:

"Follow me to his positon. Stay at a moderate distance but do not get separated. And do try to keep up." Falco smirked at her remark, but that was before he realized she had already bolted.

 _I didn't realize we were going_ _ **now.**_ Sheik caught him off guard with her abrupt departure and now that he was trying to catch up he realized she was faster than any wire-frame man he had yet encountered.

"Geez, this girl can run!" Falco remarked to Trainer. Trainer adopted a tremendously confused, almost disturbed, expression all of a sudden. Like Falco had just told him there is a planet inhabited by sentient parrots or something.

"The Ninja's a chick…" Trainer stated aloud very slowly. Now even Falco grew a bit uncomfortable at how the kid was staring at her in disbelief. "She's pretty brutal, you know, for a girl…"

"Sure, kid." Falco replied.

Gouts of thunder and fire let them know they were near to Ness. Evidently Ness had gotten free of his own accord—perhaps in the commotion caused by Sheik's group. By the time Falco arrived on the scene, Sheik and Ness had driven off any wire-frame men nearby. Now the mob seemed to be consolidating at the tower.

"Ness!" Falco cried out, placing his hand on Ness' shoulder, "I'm so…"

"It's alright!" Ness interrupted tersely, returning the gesture, "Really. I know you did all you could." Sheik's eyes smiled at the pair behind her shroud. But she interrupted their conversation with a dose of reality,

"We must act now. I recommend returning into the haze to hold out. Night will fall soon and I have reason to believe all our positions will reset, including those of the polygons." Falco disagreed verbally,

"I don't know about that. Even though we would be risking death at the Tower's energy-portal, I think getting past it would be worth it if we can access that terminal." Sheik made very direct eye contact.

"All their forces are concentrated there. I believe their commander wants us to attack there. That would be foolhardy." Sheik stated plainly. Falco grew impatient with the argument. He retorted in frustration,

"Their 'commander' is the ADMIN. He's using the terminal to control everything. That's how he dropped the haze to give away our positions earlier." Sheik interrupted.

"Which is how we found you. He made a mistake by showing his hand and we will exploit it. They were dragging you to the Tower when they took you. Clearly that is their goal. I will not oblige them that except as an absolute last-resort. We will march in two flanks: Trainer with his creatures in one, and Falco, Ness and myself in the other. Each group will travel into the haze in a great arc. After we plunge into the fog, we will cross paths. Left flank will attack the right flank's pursuers from behind. Then we will scatter in the haze and hide out until nightfall. Now go!" Falco was prepared to speak up as Sheik announced "Now go!" But since she did not ask for input, he didn't feel strongly enough about his doubts to raise his voice. Instead, he followed her in their formation, as if he were her wingman. This time, he checked to make sure Ness was keeping up. Ness was quiet, but motivated. It was strange to Falco how these newcomers changed the dynamic. They were now facing the same odds as before. _Could one Ninja really make such a difference?_ _Why is morale so much better suddenly?_

Sheik's team disappeared into the fog. Just before they reached the line of haze, Trainer noticed the enemy formation split in half to pursue both groups.

"Let's move, guys!" Trainer called out to his trio of companions. Trainer was careful to give Sheik's group a head-start. "She's pretty cute, isn't she, Squirtle? I can't believe I didn't notice before…" As she directed him, Trainer led his team to draw half of the horde out into the haze in a trajectory to separate them from the other half. After they did reach the haze, Trainer called back Squirtle and Bulbasaur and used Charizard to fly him on an arc towards the other group. Silent as night, they navigated by memory at first, and then by sound. With the dragon's leathery wings gliding softly through the air, they lost half of the horde and caught up the Sheik's party rapidly. Of course, they didn't know it until they heard a great shuffling noise of the horde beneath them. Then, Trainer dropped Squirtle and Bulbasaur at the front of the grouping before commanding Charizard to break off and meet up ahead with Sheik's party.

"CHARRRRRR!" the orange dragon bellowed defiantly and swooped down after Bulbasaur and Squirtle.

"Wait! No! The plan was to report to Sheik, Charizard. Don't be jealous of Squirtle and Bulbasaur fighting without you…" But Charizard dumped Trainer off his back as he landed. It was clear when they arrived that Squirtle and Bulbasaur were intimidated by the volume of enemies they were engaging, but the arrival of Charizard drew the mob's attention and gave them courage to fight.

"Sheeeeeeeik!" Trainer called out in the fog. Then, out of the haze, the totally-curvaceous she-warrior emerged dramatically. Batting her long, dark eyelashes in gratitude to him, Trainer's heart pounded as she approached slowly and purposefully. She didn't know quite what to say to tell him she noticed how he looked at her, so in her shyness, she placed her hand on Trainer's shoulder softly and then…

"SNAP OUT OF IT!" Sheik screamed in his ear, gripping his shoulder roughly and tossing him out of the way. Trainer wheeled around to realize he narrowly missed a giant hammer swinging at him from behind. With stars in his eyes, he sat on his butt there and watched Sheik spring into action to 'protect him.' Flashes of fire and lightning rained down from each side as Ness supported her and his Pokémon. It was quite a sight to see. Trainer was gladly taking it all in for a moment, relieved that annoying falcon wasn't around trying to be all 'heroic' in front of Sheik. Trainer finally grew suspicious of that observation and perked up his head—turning side to side searching for Falco. _That explains why she was so impatient. What happened to Falco?_ "Split up, everyone!" Sheik called out, "Hide out and hold up in the haze until blackout!"

Taking stock of the situation, Sheik bore the full weight of how dire the circumstance was. For purposes of improving morale, she could not admit that this cycle had lasted far longer than what she was used to. It was even possible they would be separated and forced to fight in the arena if the transition would occur soon. In addition to these concerns, Falco had broken formation and probably ran right into harm's way on his fool's errand. She glanced between the two schoolboys as she considered their options. _It is better that they do not know…_

"We gotta go!" Ness shouted to Trainer.

"Hold on!" Trainer interrupted. "You're hurt." Reaching into his backpack, Trainer pulled out a cheeseburger for Ness. "I found a bunch of items before all this. Here, take this too… I don't even know what it is. But maybe it will bring you good luck!" Ness thought to himself _:_

 _I'm not very superstitious…_ But he outstretched his hand to receive it anyways. Reaching into the backpack, Trainer pulled out a small, metallic lapel-pin with a lightning-bolt symbol on it. Ness' eyes widened as he realized what it was. _My Franklin Badge? I left it behind… Where did he..._

"Hurry! _"_ Sheik shouted at the pair as she drew the horde's attention. Trainer, staring at Sheik as he disappeared, called back his Pokémon into their pokéballs from the frontline. Sheik led the mob the other direction before engaging her smokescreen and disappearing from view. Sheik slipped past the horde and when she cleared the haze she could see that there were very few wire-frame men scattered in the distance outside the haze. Sheik ran to the Tower as quickly as she could.

 _Has this ADMIN halted the transitions to exterminate us? How many groups of prisoners have died this way?_

When she neared the Construct, Falco was near the terminal battling with a glowing figure with incredible power. "Lucario!" Sheik exclaimed. "The Aura Pokémon!" Lucario had Falco doubled-over near the edge of the portal. Lucario's hands glowed with tangible energy violently. _The falcon has clearly put up quite a fight. Lucario appears to be badly injured._ Sneaking up from behind, Sheik swiftly approached Lucario from behind with a knife. But there was too much ground to cover. As Lucario reared back to push Falco into the portal, Sheik knew there was no time. Sheik threw a fistful of senbon that stuck into Lucario and caused him to flinch and release Falco. As Sheik brandished her knife again, Lucario turned to face her. Falco, seizing on the distraction, swept Lucario's leg. However, Lucario merely tumbled in mid-air before recovering—hovering there with crossed arms and looking down on him. Sheik flanked Lucario and sailed through the air with a high jump kick to strike him from the side.

"WAIT!" Falco screamed. Sheik passed through the image of Lucario who countered by dodging and kicking her into the portal in the blink of an eye using his 'double-team' technique.

Falling into the blue portal, Sheik peered into the face of death and saw the night sky, lit up with more stars than she could imagine. But then she flew backwards as Falco pulled her back from the brink. Falco expressed briefly with a great sense of relief. "Stay with me, Sheik." Lucario followed up with an elemental blast from both hands, but Falco dashed Sheik a few metersaway from the Tower.

"Where is it?" Sheik whispered. Looking up, Falco glanced up at the terminal raised off the ground.

"Just keep him busy!" Falco breathed the words with a smirk. Sheik nodded in acknowledgement and the pair stood shoulder-to-shoulder to face off with ADMIN Lucario.

Lucario rushed in after the two of them and they parted to force him to engage only one at a time. He shot an orb of sustained aura energy at Sheik and went after Falco. Falco leapt backwards from Lucario's attack and fired a barrage with his ray gun before it expired. Without hesitation, Sheik took the hit from the weak projectile in the gut and grabbed Lucario from behind. Lucario watched Falco run off to the Construct as Sheik stuck him with her knife. When Falco reached the edge of the Construct, he holstered his pistol and leaned over to activate the magnetic souls of his boots. When the crew of the Great Fox was on-board in zero-gravity, magnetic boots were standard issue to get around and work as normal. Donning a pair of magnetic gloves, Falco scaled the side of the Construct, painstakingly climbing the smooth surface around the awkward archways. It was slow going and the terminal was ten meters from the ground.

The sound of Lucario and Sheik fighting could be heard growing nearer, but Falco couldn't afford to look back. When he finally reached the terminal, it conveniently opened for him and a prompt read:

TERMINAL LOCKED

PASSWORD: _

Falco engaged his target locator to scan the surface of the keyboard. Seven or eight keys appeared to be smoothed out more than the others.

"Locator: run keystroke combination algorithm." Falco commanded. In a moment, a list of twenty alphanumeric combinations appeared on the screen. PEW! A blast struck nearby against the side of the Construct. Falco glanced over his shoulder to see that Lucario's only motivation was getting to him. Sheik seemed to be doing everything in her power to restrain him.

 _I have to work fast… Falco began inputting each option down the list:_

PASSWORD: D0NT_N33D_1 INVALID [3 TRIES REMAINING]

PASSWORD: N0N3_1NT3ND INVALID [2 TRIES REMAINING]

"Arrrgh! This is getting us nowhere fast…" Falco scratched his head violently. "Underscore is common in coding. If we ignore that… …There's still 9 options…"

PASSWORD: D3T3NT10N INVALID [1 TRY REMAINING]

Falco huffed and grunted angrily before rubbing his sweaty palms together. Falco scanned the remaining options thoroughly before pulling the trigger. _It's gonna be the last thing I'd expect. Or next to the last thing…_ One option caught Falco's eye. _What does that even mean? None of these look like a real password. But this one is like a made-up word…_ He stared into the distance to make up his mind. But the noise of Sheik grunting beneath him caught his attention. She lay on her back at the base of the Tower with Lucario standing over her. She was straining to sit up because the top half of her body was hovering over the portal's edge. _I have do something!_

PASSWORD: N1NT3ND0 LOADING

Falco leaned back from the terminal and opened fire on Lucario with his laser pistol. Lucario flinched a bit but Sheik was no better off. Contact with the portal singed Sheik's hair with a violent hiss. Redirecting his attention to the panel, Falco entered commands into the prompt:

REQ: proceedtoblackout CONS: REQUEST DENIED. YELLOW ALERT ACTIVE.

REQ: rescindyellowalert CONS: REQUEST GRANTED

The Construct began to descend again and the portals within each archway appeared to power down. Falco disengaged his gravity boots and dropped down onto Lucario. Falco picked Lucario up and tossed him away—launching him like a rag-doll.

"Are you alright?" Falco asked Sheik. She nodded in response. Falco informed her, "I took the wire-frame men offline. But it won't mean anything if the ADMIN gets back to the terminal. Let's roast 'em!" Sheik nodded in acknowledgement and they faced off with Lucario once more. With a look of intense rage, Lucario began to hover at an increased altitude and his body appeared to tremble with energy. Outstretching his hands, Lucario opened his palms and placed them together. Aiming both palms at Falco, he unleashed a blinding light and an incredible beam of energy—blasting Falco into one of the archways. Sheik rushed to Falco's defense, but Lucario dragged the beam gradually towards Sheik and blasted her in the same manner. Falco barely caught the smooth wall deep inside the archway by his magnetic fingertips. Beneath him, the electric, blue portal was growing closer gradually as the Tower descended back down into the portal. Falco clambered up with just his hands a little higher to where the ceiling tapered inwards into the peak of the tunnel's archway. Then Sheik flew past him in a column of explosive fusion. Despite the blinding light and energetic turbulence, Falco snatched Sheik out of the air—sliding lower down towards the sizzling portal with the added weight. Lucario's energetic blast ceased abruptly.

"Push the button on my boot!" Falco shouted to Sheik. Shaking off the injury, Sheik realized their predicament with a shock. Her toes were dangling inches above the portal and it was inching towards them. Sheik flinched, bending her legs to raise them up. She pulled up her body with one arm and with the other grabbed Falco's boot. Feeling around with her fingertips, she could feel her knees growing very warm all of a sudden as her pants were getting singed. BEEP-CLINK. Sheik hit the button and the magnetic boots struck the side of the wall. Falco placed his hands and his feet flat on the wall and Sheik clambered up onto his shoulders. Falco strained to shuffle sideways, inching slowly to the outside of the tunnel.

"It is too far!" Sheik observed aloud. Falco did not slow down, rather he kept on at that meager pace.

"Just a little further…" Falco replied quietly. Sheik grew alarmed. Even if she abandoned him she would not clear the length of the portal in a desperate leap. Now that the Tower had continued sinking all this time, Falco was just as close to the portal's surface as she was before, but they were at the top of the archway. Things were getting cramped, but Falco kept inching onwards without a word.

"I cannot leap that distance!" Sheik pointed out aloud. Her tone was growing frantic. Falco took one hand off the wall and they started to slide down to the portal surface.

"Hold on tight." Falco warned. He leapt off the wall and activated the dash device on his belt buckle. With the added acceleration, he boosted them both out of harm's way in time. Instead of kissing the sweet, artificial ground, the pair jumped to their feet in fighting stances back-to-back. But instead of facing off to ADMIN, an unlikely pair of schoolboys stood before them. Trainer seemed especially pleased.

"I caught a Lucario!" he celebrated, holding a pokéball to eye-level. Ness seemed a bit more concerned with their well-being as he asked,

"Are you guys okay? We thought you were goners!" But before anyone could respond, that sinister energetic orb escaped out the side of the pokéball. Just as it had risen out of the husk of R.O.B. upon his demise, it abandoned its possession of Lucario after he was captured. With its rainbow luminescence, it hovered slowly out of the pokéball at first, but then they realized it was floating towards Ness. His eyes grew big as it descended on him. In his mind, Ness had already turned and started running in the opposite direction as fast as he could. But fear paralyzed him. Then, in a strange act of mercy, darkness fell.

The cycle reset.

The party scattered.


End file.
